


The Assignment

by Ingebjorg9



Category: Wallander (Sweden TV)
Genre: Detectives, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Justice, Past Abuse, Police Procedural, Recovery, Revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-07 22:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingebjorg9/pseuds/Ingebjorg9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While trying to unravel a case, Stefan comes face to face with some very unwelcome ghosts from his past. What will he learn about the case and about himself? Can Linda and Kurt help him overcome his past? Will lead to an alternative ending for Hemligheten/The Secret.  Rated T for mention of canon abuse of a main character, no graphic details.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Case Too Far

_Stones taught me to fly  
_ _Love taught me to lie  
_ _Life taught me to die  
_ _So it's not hard to fall  
_ _When you float like a cannonball -_ Damien Rice

Stuffy, the air in the office. Stefan fidgeted, rolled up his sweater sleeves, gazed at a fixed point somewhere in the middle distance. His discomfort was evident to the man sitting opposite, but did nothing to dissuade him from his attempted interrogation.

"What the hell is up with you, Stefan?" Wallander's face was white and tight-lipped.

"Nothing's up." Stefan dragged his gaze to his boss's face and looked him uncomfortably in the eye. He folded his arms and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Nothing's wrong with me."

"Really? So losing your temper with a witness and having to be restrained by your colleagues is perfectly normal, is it? Disappearing off on your own for hours in the middle of the day without a word to anyone? Picking an argument with Lisa? All this is completely reasonable behaviour?" Wallander's eyes bored into him. Stefan's mouth was completely dry, but he swallowed anyway. He was aware of his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands.

"Look, it's nothing, I just…"

"You've just picked up too many bad habits from Frank Borg, that's what! Look, Stefan," Wallander's voice dropped, his tone becoming calmer and more conciliatory. "I know you shot a man in self-defence." Stefan's eyes closed and he gave an involuntary shudder. Wallander continued, apparently oblivious. "It's hard to deal with, I of all people should know. But it doesn't give you an excuse to go off the rails or start behaving like Frank. I  _will not_  have that kind of behaviour in my team."

"So what are you going to do?" Stefan could hear the anxiety in his own voice. He felt like a condemned man all of a sudden, and Wallander was judge, jury and executioner.

Wallander sat back and rested his hands on his desk.

"You need a break, Stefan."

"No I don't, I need to work. I can't sit around all day staring at the walls. I need to  _do my job_!" He stopped, aware that he was shouting again.

"You need a break," Wallander repeated. "A change of scenery will do you a lot of good. Which is why I've decided to send you out on secondment."

"Secondment? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Our colleagues in Växjö have a case that they need some help with. Their squad is a little thin on the ground at the moment and they could use another detective for a while."

"Not a chance!" Stefan pushed his chair away from the desk and made to leave.

"Well it's your choice." Wallander's voice suddenly had a hard edge. "You can take this assignment I'm giving you, which will hopefully keep you out of trouble for a little while, or you can go on leave. For God's sake, Stefan, I'm trying to help you." Wallander dropped a file onto the desk and stared at Stefan for a moment or two.

"Take leave? No, I can't… I just…" His words petered out. The idea of enforced leave was horrifying. He needed to be busy, to fill his days with his work, otherwise...

Stefan sat down again and picked up the file.

"When do I have to start?"

* * *

The drive to Växjö had been uneventful. Stefan stepped from his car, stretched and yawned, staring up at the large, modern building in front of him. He rubbed the back of his neck. Why had he been sent here? It didn't look like the sort of place where the squad would be "thin on the ground", as Wallander had put it. And why would they send for an officer from a provincial force like Ystad?

The answer, he suspected, was that they wouldn't. He didn't like that thought. It meant that Wallander had forcibly got rid of him, offloaded him to another force. Only temporarily of course, but the idea still stung.  _Why did you send me all the way out here, Kurt? After all the cases we've worked do you really think you have to pack me off to this place so I don't cause you any more problems?_  He rubbed a hand across his unshaven face and trudged to the entrance.

A young uniformed officer was sitting behind the reception desk. He looked up as Stefan entered, and smiled.

"Yes? Can I help?"

"Stefan Lindman, from Ystad." Stefan reached for his badge and handed it to the young policeman, who looked at it with what seemed to be great interest.

"Oh yes, we've been expecting you, I think." He leafed through an untidy pile of papers, evidently in an attempt to find something with Stefan's name on it. For a brief moment Stefan was reminded of Svartman. He allowed his thoughts to wander to what his colleagues in Ystad might be doing at this minute. What was Linda doing? Did she miss him?

"I've been told to ask for an Inspector Solberg," he said, dragging his attention back to the here and now.

"That's right!" The young officer suddenly found the piece of paper he had been looking for, and looked back up at him with a satisfied smile. "She's on the first floor, room B17. Here, I'd better give you this." He handed Stefan a visitor's pass and pointed him to the stairs. Stefan nodded his thanks and began his ascent to the first floor. It had been a long, long time since he had met a cop this cheerful. He wondered how long that would last.

Compared to the station in Ystad the building was confusingly large. A corridor ran the length of the first floor, with numerous doors leading from it. A number of people were striding up and down the corridor, purposeful looks on their faces. They entered and exited various rooms, looking as if they knew exactly what they were doing. Nobody took any notice of Stefan. He searched for room B17, grateful that he was not the centre of attention. Being here reminded him of something, but it was a couple of minutes before he realised what it was. He had felt exactly the same lost feeling on his first day of high school.

Coming at last to room B17, he shook his head hard and forced his misgivings into the back of his mind, resolved to stay rational.  _Come on, keep it together, you should be good at that by now…_  He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Come in!" somebody shouted.

He opened the door.

A bright and airy conference room, with large windows and two people sitting at a sizeable table. The woman at the head of the table looked up eagerly at him, while the stout middle-aged man who was sitting near the door pushed his chair back and stood up, rubbing his moustache, an enquiring look on his face.

"Stefan Lindman, from Ystad," volunteered Stefan.

The man nodded.

"Yes, we've been expecting you." They shook hands. "Martin Turesson, Chief Superintendent."

It was a surprise to Stefan to find the Chief sitting so casually with one of his officers. The officer in question, glanced at her chief, then stood and stretched across the table to shake Stefan's hand.

"Britta Solberg. You'll be working with me. Make yourself at home."

* * *

He had the dream again.

In spite of the change of scene. In spite of the evening spent with his new colleagues, having been persuaded by Chief Turesson to join them for a drink. In spite of everything.

During the past few weeks the dream had visited him with increasing frequency. He was loath to admit it to anyone, least of all Wallander, but he suspected that the stress of his waking life was taking its toll. Shootings, armed robberies, working on the wrong side of the law with Frank: they had all weakened his resistance, and now his past was catching up with him again.

He was running, as usual. The gun in his jacket pocket banged wildly against his side, but he had to keep running through the dark woods. More than anything he needed to get away from the man in the car, the man who was pursuing him, crashing through the undergrowth in his wake. As usual he never saw the barbed wire until it was too late. Stefan felt the spike rip into the skin of his forearm, and woke with a start. He was not in the forest, he was in bed in his hotel room in Växjö. He was not eleven years old, he was a grown man. Nobody was chasing after him, except perhaps his own personal ghosts.

Why wouldn't they leave him alone? After all this time why couldn't he empty his head of all this stuff?

Stefan got out of bed, glancing at the illuminated dial of the clock on the bedside table. 2:17 a.m. He rubbed his face wearily and went to the window. Leaning his forehead against the glass he looked out across Stortorget. The square, largely empty except for a couple of parked cars, seemed devoid of life. Opposite, the local council offices were in darkness. The whole of Växjö seemed to be asleep, except for him.

_What am I doing here?_  He let his thoughts wander back to Ystad, and to Linda. Why the hell didn't he just get in the car and drive back, go straight to her with a bottle of wine and chase the nightmares away? But he knew it wouldn't work.

Sighing, he dismissed the idea from his head and got back into bed. His last thought before he slept was of Linda, and all the things he wished he could say to her.

 


	2. The Photograph

Stefan shivered. A chill wind blew along Kungsgatan, promising more snow. Compounded with his general grogginess it conspired to make him feel even more uncomfortable than normal.

He paused, closed his eyes and concentrated on Linda's voice on the other end of his phone.

"But did he say why he was sending you?"

"They're understaffed here and they need help."

"But why  _you_? Why not me or Martinsson?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? To keep me out of trouble. He doesn't want me cracking up on him."

"It's not that bad, is it?" He hated himself for the anxiety in Linda's voice.

A car hurried past, its tyres spraying him with melted slush from the road. He shivered and dodged into a small shop to escape the elements, ignoring the glare of the shopkeeper who watched him from behind the counter, deep suspicion etched all over his face.

"I'll be all right." It was not a very convincing reassurance, and they both knew it.

"I worry about you, Stefan," she said.

"I know. I'm ok. Really. I'm fine. Look, I have to go or I'll be late."

"We'll speak later, won't we?"

"I promise."

He hung up and looked at his surroundings. The shopkeeper was still glaring at him. He gave the man a sheepish smile and bought a bottle of water to appease him, before diving back out into the morning chill. Dragging his feet a little, he found his way along Sandgärdsgatan, past the cemetery and back to the bustle of the police station. His car was where he had left it in the car park, and for a moment he was once again overcome with an urge to get in and drive off. Anywhere would do. Back to Ystad, or perhaps the other way, heading north to Stockholm and beyond. Why didn't he just do that? Why not take himself away from this place that he didn't really want to be in anyway?

The answer was that if he did there would be hell to pay. And he wasn't sure he was ready to pay that kind of price. Not yet.

He gritted his teeth and shook himself.  _Come on, you've handled much worse than this. Get in there and do your job._

He hesitated for a moment, then pushed open the door and went in.

* * *

Inspector Britta Solberg had a ridiculously small office. Due to an administrative screw-up when the offices were allocated, she had ended up with a room that resembled a whitewashed broom cupboard. There was barely room for her desk and bookcase, let alone a visitor. Stefan sat in her guest chair, which had been crammed into a minute space, and smiled awkwardly at her across the desk. She had evidently been in here for several hours already that morning and was tired and grumpy. She snapped shut a thick notebook and looked up at him with a harassed expression on her face.

"I'm sorry about this. Martin gave them hell about putting me in this room, but they can't move me out of here for another couple of days. Why don't you use Kalle's office? He's on leave."

Glancing round Kalle Pedersen's office, Stefan came to the conclusion that its usual occupant was a family man with a penchant for house plants. The desk was covered with various framed photos of the man's wife and children, and the windowsill with potted geraniums and spider plants. A large potted palm tree took up the entire corner of the room by the window. Stefan had never seen anything quite like it. Sinking into Kalle's plush leather chair, he opened the files that Solberg had given him and tried to form a coherent picture of the case in hand.

For several years Växjö had been at the centre of what seemed to be a smuggling operation, mainly trafficking knock-off cigarettes and vodka from Eastern Europe. For a long time it was little more than a nuisance, even though it seemed Chief Turesson had spent an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to stamp it out. Recently, however, things had deteriorated. More and more stolen and counterfeit European goods were turning up in the town, and one of the more interesting suspects had been beaten to a pulp. He had, of course, refused to say anything incriminating to the police and they were still none the wiser as to who was really behind all these dubious goings-on. The local press had also stuck its oar in and was demanding that the police do something about the problem.

Stefan closed the last file with a sigh. On the face of it, this was a tiresome and rather unremarkable case. Wherever you looked these days somebody was trafficking something, whether it was booze, tobacco, electronics or stolen cars. He thought about the case that Kurt had been dealing with for many years, wherein cars were being smuggled to Poland. The last thing Stefan wanted was to get sucked into an investigation like that.

I'd rather be a beat cop again, he thought.

In spite of himself, though, something in one of those files had caught his attention for a moment. He searched back through the sheaves of paper, trying to remember what it was. There were copious notes, interview transcripts, lists of names and dates, newspaper cuttings, E-FIT pictures, photographs and faxes from various other countries' police forces. When he found whatever it was, he would know.

Five seconds later he held the photo between trembling fingertips, his mind and heart racing. With his other hand he leafed through the rest of file and recovered a related page of notes and an E-FIT that he had overlooked the last time. Placing them on the desk in front of him, he stared at them for a long time. He really didn't know what the hell he was doing here, or even where he would go from this moment on, but now there was one thing that he did know. He knew he wanted to be on this case.

* * *

Linda sank into her seat and gave her computer screen a morose stare. The office was too quiet and she missed Stefan's presence opposite her. He could often be infuriating, and there were frequently the sort of awkward moments that you often get when working with someone who used to sleep in the same bed as you, but she preferred having him there all the same. In spite of everything, she felt better when he was around. Right now there was little to distract her from the mild but persistent anxiety she was feeling, and nobody whose brains she could pick.

It had been a very unsatisfactory house call, and her investigations were no further forward than they had been that morning. Admittedly she and her father were acting on an anonymous tip-off, but if true the implications of said tip-off could be extremely serious. Her father had a strong hunch that something was wrong and Linda knew enough about his instincts to trust them in this case.

As she scanned the emails that had arrived, Stefan's name immediately caught her eye. Her heart gave a little jump as she clicked and waited for the message to load. The subject line was blank, the message concise and to the point.

_Call me as soon as you can, I need to talk to you. Do you recognise this man?_

_Stefan_

Attached were a photo and a scanned newspaper cutting that Linda suspected had been lifted from a case file. A name in the news report had been circled; she guessed it was the name of the man in the photo. She was unsure whether or not she had seen him before. She would look the name up in the database, she decided, then she would speak to Stefan.

Martinsson passed by, reminding her that they had a meeting in the conference room. Rising from her desk she followed him out of the room, casting a glance back at her computer. An instinct that she couldn't quite put her finger on told her that the email from Stefan was important. Why, and in what way, she didn't yet know. Stefan had asked for her help. She would do what she could.


	3. Running

In the beginning he was naïve and trusting. His home life wasn't much fun: his sisters mostly ignored him, and tiptoeing around to avoid provoking one of their father's rages was exhausting and made them all into nervous wrecks. He was always surprised and pleased when someone actually took an interest in him. The next door neighbours, for instance, or his favourite teacher. Then there were his father's friends.

He didn't understand what went on in his father's life, and wouldn't until much later. His father had a lot of friends who came and went and whom he visited, sometimes taking the children. Sometimes he would catch snippets of their conversation as he played on the floor with his toy cars. What they said made little sense to him. With some of them his father talked about The War a lot. For a long time The War was a fuzzy subject to him; only when he got older and studied it in school did he begin to understand its implications a little. But still, he liked some of his father's friends. Some of them were kind to him, one or two especially so.

And he cursed the day that one of them in particular had befriended him. Afterwards he could never again be said to be naïve and trusting.

* * *

"What's this about, Stefan? Where did you get this photo?" Linda held the photo in one hand and her phone in the other.

On the other end of the line Stefan hunched himself over Kalle Pedersen's desk and murmured into the phone, desperate not to be discovered by any of his new colleagues. In front of him he too had the photo that Linda was now looking at.

"It was in one of the files for the case I'm dealing with here. I know this guy – he's a creep and if he's involved in this smuggling racket then it's worse than anybody thinks."

"Why? I ran his name through our records database, but all we have on him is that he was arrested once in connection with a robbery in Skurup. They couldn't actually prove he'd done anything."

"No. He's the sort of creep that always gets away." Stefan rubbed his free hand across his face. He was shaking. He wanted a drink, or maybe five.

"But how do you know him, Stefan?"

Stefan took a deep breath.

"Some things happened years ago." He exhaled, slowly and deliberately. "Really bad things. There were some kids involved. He wasn't directly responsible, but I found out later that he had been in the background when it was going on. And nobody suspected anything, nobody could prove anything."

"What do you mean?" said Linda, slowly. On the other end of the line Stefan could hear the gears turning in her head. Sooner or later she would arrive at the inevitable conclusion. "What do you mean, there were kids involved? Was this one of your old cases?"

"Look, I can't... I can't tell you anything else right now, just promise you'll tell me if this guy turns up, or if you get any cases involving under-16s."

"I don't know, Stefan. Maybe I should get my dad to..."

"No! Please, don't say anything to Kurt. Just promise you'll tell me if anything happens."

"Stefan..."

"Promise!"

"Okay," Linda conceded. "I promise I'll tell you. But you're scaring me, Stefan. You're not in trouble, are you?"

Stefan leaned back in the soft leather chair and exhaled.

"No, I'm not in trouble. Seeing his picture just brought back a lot of memories, that's all."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really. I'll be okay, I promise. It's just the stress."

"I thought you were supposed to have been sent up there to get away from the stress. Will you call me if you need to talk?"

"Of course I will." Stefan allowed himself to smile wistfully for a minute, wishing more than anything that he could go home to Linda that night. They would drink together, maybe fall asleep, clinging together like two lost souls who had found each other.

His musings were interrupted by a knock at the door. Inspector Solberg stuck her head into the room.

"We've got a meeting in five minutes in the conference room."

Stefan nodded to her and she left.

"I have to go, we have a meeting," Stefan sighed into the phone. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Take care, Stefan."

Linda hung up and buried her face in her hands. She could not ignore the sense of unease she was feeling. She knew there was something Stefan wasn't telling her. What it was and why, she couldn't begin to imagine, but the conversation had jolted her. The tip-off her father had received... well, it was only some anonymous person's suspicion, but if there was any truth in it, it meant that children were at risk. Stefan had talked about bad things happening to children under the age of 16. He seemed to know something about a possible perpetrator. Linda looked again at the photo. Was this ordinary-looking man a monster in disguise?

She shuddered, then gave herself a hard shake. Even if he was, how likely was it that he was the one they were looking for? So he had been mentioned in connection with a case of smuggling in Växjö? So what?

All the same, an instinct told her to do some digging. She would try to discover whatever information was out there about this man. What she would find remained to be seen.

* * *

The air conditioning in the conference room had broken down, apparently for the third time in a month. In between reports on their progress, or lack of it, detectives Andersson and Ahlqvist complained bitterly about the stuffiness of the room.

"Can we  _please_  get back to the matter in hand?" Solberg ordered, after their third digression. "It's getting late and I think most of us would quite like to go home soon."

Ahlqvist grunted and rolled his shirt sleeves up as far as they would go.

"It's all right for Kalle," he grumbled. "How does he get to be on holiday when we're stuck here? And where's Pilqvist when we need him?"

"You know perfectly well that Pilqvist is following up on a tip-off," said a voice. Everyone turned as Chief Turesson walked into the room and stood gazing placidly at them. Stefan wondered if anything ever pierced the Chief Superintendent's impassive exterior. His own chief Lisa Holgersson may have been something of an ice queen, but Turesson was the most unflustered person he had ever met.

Turesson stared at them all for a moment, then shook his head.

"It's damn hot in here. Why don't you open a window?" He moved to one of the windows and, after a small argument with the catch, got it open. "That's a lot better," he muttered, and sank into a seat.

"So, where have we got to?" he said, eyeing everyone in general, and Ahlqvist in particular.

"More or less where we were before," said Ahlqvist. "We have information that another shipment is due to come through the town in the next week, but no details of where or when exactly. And no idea who this mysterious informant is, either. That's the third time we've heard from him now."

"And he always tells us enough to get our hopes up, but not enough for us to actually achieve anything. Hmmm." Turesson sank deeper into his chair and rubbed his moustache, an expression of deep thought settling over his face.

"It sounds like he's toying with you," said Stefan.

The others looked at him in surprise. He had said very little to any of them since he arrived and they had taken him to be the strong silent type. Wrong on both counts, he thought grimly.

"Yes," said Turesson. "I believe you're right. He's probably involved with this business and gets a bit of fun out of his little game of baiting the police." He sighed and brushed away some loose moustache hairs.

Stefan decided to show his hand a little. He needed information if he was going to achieve what he wanted to achieve, so in a slow cautious movement he slid a photograph onto the table.

The photo depicted a very ordinary-looking middle-aged man. There were lines on his forehead and between his eyes, and a five o'clock shadow around his mouth, which was slightly askew. He seemed to be smiling very faintly, but his eyes were inscrutable. For all the clues the picture gave he could have been either a priest or a serial killer, or possibly both. Stefan, however, knew exactly who he was. All he wanted to know was what the others knew about him.

"This guy," he said, as if that explained everything.

"Yes?" said Solberg, who seemed relieved that he was finally contributing. "Do you think he's involved?"

"You bet I do. His name came up a few times in the files. I'd like to investigate him a bit further."

"On what grounds?" Solberg held his gaze. "Does he have form?"

"I remember him from an old case I worked on," Stefan lied.

"Who is he anyway?" Turesson interjected.

"Lars Matsson," said Ahlqvist. "I followed him up the last time. Thought there was something a bit wrong with the guy, but we couldn't find anything at all against him."

"I'm not sure we should drag him back in to the investigation," said Solberg. "Do we have anything to go on?"  _Ever the straight-laced cop,_  Stefan thought, with more than a little malice,  _who does she remind me of?_

"I'd still like to take a look at him," he said.

"Yeah, go for it," said Ahlqvist. "As I said, I thought there was something about him, but could never work out what. Maybe your eagle eyes will spot something I didn't."

He gave a smile that was only half facetious. Stefan was feeling an irrational amount of gratitude towards him, and smiled back.

"Hmmm," mumbled Turesson. "You may as well take a look at him, Stefan. Peter," he nodded to Ahlqvist, "you help him. See what you can turn up. If you don't find anything you can assist Jonas with trying to track down our anonymous tipster." Andersson gave him a look of surprise, but Turesson had clearly finished and was standing up with an air of finality. It seemed that the meeting was adjourned.

The others stood, gathering files, pens, notepads and other possessions. Solberg strode out of the room in pursuit of Turesson.

"See you tomorrow, Britta," said Andersson cheerfully. Solberg gestured in reply and continued her pursuit of the Chief.

"What's her problem?" muttered Ahlqvist.

Stefan made his weary way back to Kalle Pedersen's office, contemplating his next move. A movement in the corner next to the palm tree made him jump. The man who was standing there laughed and apologised.

"Who are you?" Stefan frowned, feeling his heart rate begin to return to normal.

"I'm sorry, I should have put the light on when I came in," said the stranger. "I'm Evert. Evert Pilqvist. You must be Stefan?"

Stefan nodded.

"We were just talking about you," he said, sitting down. Pilqvist grinned.

"Nothing bad, I hope. How are you liking it here so far?"

"It's all right." Stefan folded his arms and gazed up at Pilqvist.

"I thought I should come and introduce myself, and meet the guy who worked with Frank Borg and lived to tell the tale."

"How did you know about that?"

"Everyone knows about Frank. He's a bit of a legend. Well done on not letting him ruin your career like he's done to just about everyone else he's ever known."

Stefan grunted, but Pilqvist's friendly smile never faltered. He leaned down and patted Stefan's shoulder like an old friend.

"Let me know if you need any help. Things get a bit mad around here sometimes."

With that he was gone. Shaking his head, Stefan leaned back in his chair and let out an exhausted sigh. The bar of the Elite Hotel and a large glass of brandy were calling him.

* * *

In the darkness he could just see the man's face if he glanced sideways.

"Why must you make this so difficult?"

Always the same question, loaded with implied guilt. Always the same hand resting on his leg. Always the same nauseating smell of the man's cigarettes.

He looked away. He didn't yet have a coherent answer to the question, but he did have a plan. Bursting out of the car, he took to his heels and ran, faster than he had ever run before. He ran as if his life depended on it.

And he was still running. As he lay on his back, staring sleeplessly up into the darkness, he realised that he had never really stopped. In his dreams, his daydreams, his life and relationships he had always kept running.

No more, he thought. It was time to retrace his steps.


	4. A Storm Gathering

The gun nestled in its box in the drawer. It had lain there undisturbed for a long time before the boy found it. He was fascinated by it: its shape, its cold heaviness in his hands, the satisfying click it made as he armed it. Holding it gave him an unfamiliar feeling of power. He was in control, anyone who tried to mess with him could go to hell.

Lifting it, he considered that one day he might like to use it. Throwing some poses with it he felt like a cowboy or one of the cops he sometimes saw on TV. The gun was his new best friend.

The noise from the hallway stopped him in his tracks. As the footsteps approached the habitual feeling of dread settled over him. Quickly he hid the gun in a place where he could easily get hold of it again.

_One day_ , he thought.  _One day I'm going to use this_.

* * *

Kurt Wallander sat at his desk. He had been here, immobile, for nearly two hours. On his orders nobody had disturbed him. His temper was so short that morning that nobody really wanted to provoke him anyway.

To anyone glancing through the glass panel in his office door he seemed to be engaged in a staring match with his desk. Had anyone had the nerve to go inside the office, they would soon have realised that he had a multitude of notes and sheets of paper – contents of old case files – spread out in front of him and was intently studying them.

He had a bad feeling about this. Ever since that anonymous phone call the previous morning he had had an unpleasant sense of foreboding. It didn't help that he also had a headache. Sitting up, he reached into his jacket pocket for the packet of pills that he knew was there. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a movement at the door. Glancing up, he could see Chief Holgersson watching him through the glass, an expression of mild concern in her normally rather glacial eyes. He nodded to her and she came in, closing the door behind her.

"Kurt," she said, sitting down opposite the desk.

"Hello Lisa." A mouthful of cold coffee from his mug washed down the pills. He grimaced and gazed at Holgerson over the rim of the mug, then replaced it on the desk and leaned back in his chair, still watching her face.

"Kurt," she said again. "Is everything all right?"

"Fine, Lisa." It wasn't exactly a lie.

"You've been in here a long time. Is all this to do with that phone call?" She gestured to the pieces of paper littering his desk.

"Yes. Yes it is." Wallander leaned forward again, clasping his hands in front of him on the desk. "And I know you're going to ask me if all this is necessary, but I believe it is."

"It was just an anonymous phone call, Kurt."

"I know that, but it's not the kind of allegation I think we can ignore. The idea that something like that is going on under our noses – it's repugnant."

Holgersson nodded.

"Yes. Yes, it's a horrible thought. But do you think you have anything concrete?"

"I don't know yet. I need a few hours to sort through the prior intelligence we have on the subject. It's the kind of thing Stefan would be good at... if he were here."

"Probably just as well he isn't." Holgersson rubbed a hand across her face. "That witness didn't press charges, but I had a hard time convincing my bosses to drop it. If he doesn't calm down a bit I don't know what we're going to do with him."

"He's all right where he is just now," Wallander grunted, pushing some papers back into a file. "The change of scene will give him a chance to cool it a bit."

"Hmm." Holgersson stood up and watched him stifle a yawn. "I'll let you get on with this. But Kurt?"

"What?" He glanced up at her.

"For God's sake have a coffee break, hmm?"

Wallander gave her a subdued smile as she left. Getting up from his chair, he stretched and rubbed his aching neck before wandering to the break room and pouring himself some hot coffee. If nothing else the change of environment would help him think, and the caffeine might invigorate his brain cells for a little longer.

Settling at an empty table he cleared his mind and began his train of thought again from the beginning.

* * *

Stefan would never be quite sure exactly how he had persuaded Ahlqvist to go along with his plan. On the face of it, it was absolutely crazy, something that a few months previously he would never even have contemplated. Yet here they were.

It had been ridiculously easy to get in: a little covert surveillance had proved that the building was deserted, at least for now. The ground floor window onto the back garden was not exactly secure and the catch gave way easily when Stefan worked it with an old credit card. In any other situation he would have advised the homeowner to install new window locks. In this case the lack of security was a very good thing indeed.

By the time they climbed inside dusk was falling and an eerie hush had settled over the dishevelled little neighbourhood that the house belonged to. Looking around, they found themselves in a cluttered living room. A sour smell hung on the air. Stefan closed the dusty curtains and turned on a lamp that sat on a little table by the wall.

"I don't know why I let you talk me into this," Ahlqvist grumbled. "You realise Solberg will have our hides if she finds out about this?"

"She won't."

Stefan glanced round the room. An open door led into the dark kitchen, another into the hallway where, through the gloom, he could just make out another doorway. As Ahlqvist inspected the bookcase and television bench Stefan moved into the hall and tried the door. Locked.

"What's he hiding in here?" he asked nobody in particular.

"His vacuum cleaner, probably," said Ahlqvist, who had joined him in the hall. In spite of himself Stefan grinned. Reaching into his pocket he found what he needed: the pass key that had mysteriously turned up in his car some time ago. He suspected Frank Borg had inadvertently left it there. Frank would probably have been greatly amused if he could see the use that Stefan was putting it to now.

The lock clicked open and Stefan forced himself to think about something other than Frank. Cautiously he turned the handle and pulled open the door to reveal a small room. He flicked the light switch, and they stepped inside as the lone lightbulb flickered into life. If anything, this room, evidently an office, was even less pleasant than the living room. Thick curtains had been pulled over the dirty windows and the whole room gave off a stale funk, betraying the fact that it had not been cleaned or aired out for some time.

Screwing up his face in mild disgust Ahlqvist moved to the desk and opened a drawer. Stefan concentrated on the shelves, which were piled with books, stacks of paper and what looked like assorted bits of junk. It was a very unlikely nerve centre for a large smuggling operation, but the smuggling was not Stefan's top priority. He had an idea that it was not their suspect Matsson's top priority either.

"What are we looking for, anway?" Ahlqvist's voice cut into his thoughts.

"Names, places, any information we can use."

"This won't be admissible in court."

"It doesn't have to be. We just need a tip-off as to who his associates are."

Ahlqvist grunted and resumed his hunt through the desk drawers. As Stefan lifted a large, dusty tome from the shelf something fluttered out from between the pages: a photograph, coming to rest face down on the grubby floor. Stefan bent down and picked it up.

He had thought that he was prepared for what he might find lurking behind the facade of this case, but the photograph in his hand was still like a punch in the guts. For a moment he felt as if all the air had been knocked out of his lungs. He glanced at Ahlqvist, who was busy starting up Matsson's computer.

"Found anything?" said Ahlqvist.

Stefan swallowed and shook his head. Hastily he slid the photo back between the book's covers and with great care opened the thick volume. Several more photos tucked between the pages each revealed a little more of the sordid story of Matsson's life and inclinations. Some of the pictures seemed quite innocent, others less so, but he tried not to look too hard at any of them, until one in particular caught his attention. With a shaking hand and bated breath he picked it up, hardly believing what he saw. The sullen brown eyes of an 11 year old boy looked out at him: his own eyes looking back at him from 20-odd years in the past. His younger self was pictured sitting on a bed in a dull room, staring reluctantly up at the camera, arms draped round his body in a defiant attempt to protect himself. A flood of unwelcome memories crowded into Stefan's mind. He shook his head hard to dispell them, and turned the photograph over. Sure enough, there was a short note on the back in vaguely familiar handwriting. Struggling for a moment to control the great rage that suddenly swept through him, he stuffed the photo into his pocket and took several deep breaths.

An exclamation from Ahlqvist at the computer finally broke the spell.

"We're onto something, all right. There's a lot of stuff here."

Finding that he was able to move again, Stefan went to Ahlqvist, who, with an air of great satisfaction, was copying Matsson's documents onto a USB drive.

No more hiding his hand: there was no way he could keep quiet now. It was time to share at least a little of what he knew, to get Ahlqvist on his side.

"Peter, look at this."

Ahlqvist looked up and, catching sight of Stefan's expression, took the book from his outstetched hand. Stefan watched as he leafed through it, his face showing more and more disgust. Finally Ahlqvist snapped the book shut and looked up at him again with the face of a man who was about to be violently sick.

"What the hell are we going to do about this?" he groaned.

* * *

Linda stared at her computer screen for a long time. She had unconsciously wrapped her arms around her body, and one hand rubbed absently on the gooseflesh that had suddenly appeared on her arm. The placid face gazing at her from the screen both fascinated and repelled her. The sparse notes accompanying the picture detailed an arrest record in Poland. Worryingly, despite several arrests, the Polish police had been unable to make any charges stick. The words "predator" and "trafficking" featured prominently in the Polish police's notes.

Re-reading the screen she heard Stefan's voice once again: "The sort of creep that always gets away."

Would he get away again? Shuddering, she wrapped her jumper round her shoulders and picked up the phone. Stefan's mobile number went straight to voicemail. She hung up and shuddered again, then slowly got up and walked to her father's office.

Wallander glanced up as his daughter entered the room. The moment he saw the expression on her face his fears were confirmed. He  _knew_  they were on to something serious.

* * *

In the calm of the almost deserted Växjö police station, Stefan and Ahlqvist sat under a dim light in Kalle Pedersen's office, debating how to proceed.

"We can't ignore this, can we?" said Ahlqvist. "I always had the feeling there was  _something_  not right about this guy. I had no idea he was such a pervert." His fingers brushed the cover of the book that they had taken with them from Lars Matsson's office, and then quickly retreated as if he had suddenly thought better of it.

Stefan ran a hand through his hair and slumped in the soft leather seat, suddenly overcome by weariness.

"What do you want to do about it?" he said, frowning. "We can't tell Solberg. You said yourself she would have our hides if she found out we'd been to his place."

"We can't keep this evidence to ourselves, Stefan." Ahlqvist was beginning to lose his temper. "Kids are being put at risk by this man and his sick friends!"

"I don't need you to tell me that!" Stefan snapped. "I know exactly what people like him are capable of. More than you'll ever know!" On the verge of saying too much, he checked himself, aware that he had subconsciously been fingering the long white scar on his forearm. He pulled his sleeve down and folded his arms, glaring at Ahlqvist.

"Really? I didn't know I was dealing with such an expert. And may I remind you that it was YOU that insisted on breaking in to his place." Stefan flinched as Ahlqvist jabbed at him with his finger. "So come on then, expert. What would YOU do about this?"

Stefan cradled his head in his hands and sat motionless for a few moments. A deep sigh escaped him. Presently he looked up at his colleague, who sat perched on the desk, arms folded, glowering at him.

"No, you're right," he said finally. "We can't sit on this evidence. If it was only the smuggling nobody would get hurt, but these boys..." Both of them cast a reluctant glance at the leather-bound book. "...these boys need all the help they can get. We've got to stop Matsson... and his friends."

Ahlqvist nodded, appearing to come to a decision.

"In the morning let's take this to Turesson," he said.

"Turesson?"

Ahlqvist nodded.

"Turesson's more likely to understand. He's got a lot of experience, he might cut us some slack. On the other hand, Britta sees things mostly in black and white when it comes to procedures."

"Just like Kurt," Stefan snorted. Ahlqvist smiled.

The two men left the office and, taking the book to Ahlqvist's office, locked it in his desk drawer for the night. Stefan noticed that his colleague looked suddenly worn out.  _Join the club_ , he thought to himself.

Stefan wandered out of the office and waited while Ahlqvist locked the door, then they headed for the stairs. A light in Evert Pilqvist's room was the only sign of activity on this floor of the building.

"What the hell is he up to at this time of night?" Ahlqvist muttered, shaking his head.

At the front door they said goodnight and went their separate ways.

Stefan left his car and walked through the dark town. A glance at his phone told him that he had several messages from Linda. Leaning against a wall he began to read. When he had finished, he put the phone back in his pocket with a shaking hand and carried on towards his hotel, quicker this time. He reached his room, slightly breathless, and went for the bag he had stowed in the back of the cupboard.

The gun nestled in the bottom of the bag. It had lain there undisturbed since he arrived. Stefan lifted it and held it to the light, inspecting it. He checked the safety catch and stroked his finger down the trigger.

Tucking it into his jacket pocket he felt an odd sense of comfort. He was just about ready to use the gun again.


	5. Under The Rocks

Linda closed her eyes and sat perfectly still, in the vain hope that the pain in her head would subside. Why had she woken up with a migraine, today of all days? Today the team was going to focus on the man Stefan had tipped her off about. With her eyes closed she could still clearly picture his face. Lars Matsson. He was inside her head and until she knew everything had been done to find him she wouldn't be able to get rid of him in a hurry.

She shivered and suppressed a wave of nausea.

"Are you all right?" Martinsson's voice cut into her consciousness. She opened her eyes again and looked at him.

"My head's killing me," she said. "Migraine."

Martinsson nodded.

"My wife gets those. You should go home and get some sleep. It'll be much better for you than sitting here hunched up at your computer."

"But there's so much to do. We've got to look over the reports from Interpol and put a plan together."

"The reports will still be here tomorrow, and if you have any ideas in the meantime you can always phone and let us know." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, let me drive you home."

Linda found she didn't have the strength to argue. Rising slowly to her feet, she followed Martinsson out through reception, where he stopped to talk to Ebba.

"If you see Kurt tell him I've taken Linda home."

"Migraine," Linda explained, beginning to feel a little guilty.

"Oh, you poor thing!" Ebba exclaimed. "Do you need painkillers? I have some here in the drawer. They're very good."

"It's okay, I've taken something already."

"Tell Kurt he needs to look after you a bit better. Letting you come to work with a migraine, indeed!"

Linda and Martinsson exchanged glances, but said nothing. As they were heading out the door Ebba called to them again.

"Before you go, there was a message for you, Linda." She hurried over with a note. "A nice inspector from the Polish police called. I've taken all his details."

"I can deal with this if you want," offered Martinsson.

"No, it's okay. I'll have a look at it at home when I've had a nap."

Thanking Ebba, they left and drove to Linda's street. Once in the house, Linda lay on the bed and closed her eyes. She knew she should sleep, but her head was full of images and half-formed ideas. It seemed to be making the pain worse. She tried to restart her train of thought at the beginning, the first place she'd noticed the sense of unease she was feeling. It had to do with Stefan, she knew that much. It seemed that a lot of things in her life these days had to do with Stefan, more than she would be willing to admit to anybody, especially him.

She sighed and turned over on her pillow to try and ease the throbbing in her head. Stefan had always been fiery and quick to stand up for what he believed, but lately there had been a subtle change in him. It was almost as if... what? She searched her subconscious to understand what this was about. Finally she decided that it was as if a sense of desperation had taken hold of Stefan. The more she thought about it, the more she began to understand that something was eating away at him. It might explain why finding Matsson was so important to him. But what connection could he possibly have with a creep like that?

Linda was shivering. She pulled the quilt over herself and huddled underneath, her eyes closed. Presently she felt the drowsiness creeping up on her. It was like walking down a long corridor. To the left and right there were doors, possibilities, but the other end was her goal, the truth that she sought.  _I need to keep going_ , she thought sleepily.  _I need to keep asking questions..._

* * *

A cold wind blew across Växjö, buffeting the walls and windows of the police station, threatening snow. Stefan shivered. Gazing out the large window, he watched the cars driving to and fro on the street below, and a hardy few pedestrians struggling along the pavement. As he watched, a very harassed-looking Evert Pilqvist strode across the road from Oxtorget and hurried in the front door. At the same time, a woman scurried out and almost collided with a uniformed patrol officer who had gone outside for a cigarette break. Words were exchanged and the officer watched the woman stride away down the street with a bewildered look on his face. A wistful smile spread across Stefan's face as he was reminded of his colleague Svartman back in Ystad.

He shook himself.  _To hell with this_ , he thought,  _why am I so homesick all of a sudden?_

The door shut behind him and he jumped, remembering where he was and what he was here for. Chief Turesson had finally arrived, having kept Stefan and Ahlqvist waiting for the last twenty minutes. It had, thought Stefan, been a lot like being back in school, waiting in the headmaster's office for him to dish out a punishment.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. It's Britta's birthday next week and the social committee wants some ideas on what to do for her." Turesson sank into his seat and looked intently at the two officers. "And what can I do for you two gentlemen?"

Stefan cast a brief glance at Ahlqvist, who was sitting uneasily in the visitor's chair. Ahlqvist shifted apprehensively and cleared his throat.

"I'm afraid you're not going to like this very much," he said.

"What is it?"

Turesson stared up at them, with absolute unbroken attention. It had occurred to Stefan that behind the chief's laid back exterior was an exceedingly sharp mind: this was now being proved by the absolute concentration he was focussing on them. Stefan wasn't sure how much he liked this; it had the potential to get very uncomfortable for them very quickly.

Ahlqvist cleared his throat again.

"We've uncovered some rather disturbing evidence about our suspect Matsson," he said. "The problem is  _how_  we uncovered this evidence."

"Go on." Turesson leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand, fixing Ahlqvist with an intense stare, as if he had idea of what was coming next.

"Well, um, it's like this, we didn't actually follow procedure..."

"It was my idea," Stefan broke in, unable to bear the tension. "I persuaded Peter to come with me and take a look at Matsson's house, to see if we could get some sort of tip-off on who his associates are. We got in through a window." He stopped, and swallowed, suddenly aware of how dry his throat was.

"I see," said Turesson. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, frowning up at Stefan. "So you mean to tell me that the pair of you broke into Matsson's place and searched it  _without_  a warrant or indeed any kind of authorisation at all?"

Stefan shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked at the carpet.

"Yes. That's about it."

"I see," said Turesson again. He pushed his chair back from the desk and stretched out his legs. He looked across at Ahlqvist. "Frankly, I'm surprised at you, Peter, agreeing to go along with this. You know perfectly well what the law says about this sort of behaviour. It was really damn stupid of you. What if you'd been caught?"

Ahlqvist squirmed in his seat, shame-faced.

"I know, and I'm sorry. But we weren't caught."

"Anyway, it was my idea!" Stefan interrupted. "I twisted Peter's arm. It was wrong, but it was a means to an end!"

Turesson gave him a curious look, then sighed. He was silent for several minutes, during which time he rubbed his moustache, evidently in deep thought.

"All right," he said, finally. "As you seem so certain that nobody saw you, and as I'm in a good mood today, I'll let it drop  _just this once_. But if it ever happens again, you'll both be out of here so fast your feet won't touch the ground. Do I make myself clear?"

They nodded. For the first time that morning Stefan felt himself relax a little.

"So," Turesson continued. "What's this disturbing evidence you've found?"

Without a word, Ahlqvist placed the book on Turesson's desk. The two officers watched in silence as the chief examined it and took out the photographs sandwiched between its pages. After a while he looked up at them again, his normally good-humoured face unsmiling and sombre.

"I see why you brought me this," he said quietly.

* * *

Linda woke with a start. Groggily, she sat up in bed and looked at her watch. She had been asleep for more than three hours. The pounding in her head had reduced to a general weary achiness. It was like having a hangover, complete with the requisite mental fog and aversion to bright light. She grimaced at the sun shining through her window, heaved herself up and drew the curtains.

Time for more painkillers and, now that her stomach seemed to have settled down, a good strong coffee. She sat at the kitchen table with her cup and tried to figure out what had woken her so suddenly. The dream she had been having was already a dim memory, a series of seemingly unconnected faces and images, but nonetheless something in her subconscious had stood out sharply enough to jerk her mind back to reality. She rubbed her forehead and took another sip of coffee.

It was then that she remembered the note that Ebba have given her. Unfolding the slip of paper, she noted the details of a Polish police officer called Lisiewicz, who had found something in his force's archives that she might be interested in. She could call him back any time to discuss it. No time like the present, she thought, pulling her mobile phone towards her and dialling the number. It rang several times before a man with a pleasant voice answered. When she introduced herself he surprised her by speaking in Swedish. It transpired that he had spent several years seconded to a Swedish force as part of some kind of initiative to reduce crime around the Baltic. He was especially interested in links between Polish and Scandinavian criminals and, as something of an expert within his force, Linda's query had been passed to him.

Linda spent a little over twenty minutes talking to Lisiewicz. When she put the phone down, she had almost forgotten about her migraine. She looked at the hasty notes she had scribbled, the comprehensive list of names and dates that the Polish officer had given her. She recognised at least one of the names.

By then she had also remembered what it was that had caused her to wake so suddenly. It had been something to do with Borås, she was sure of it. She had seen a mention of the place somewhere among all the investigation data they had accumulated. Stefan was from Borås. Was this unpleasant mess linked to him in some way?

How could it be? What did he have to do with these people and their predatory behaviour? Linda shook her head to dispel the idea, then immediately regretted it as a spasm of pain shot across her forehead. Rubbing her head, she focussed on a half-formed that had floated to the surface of her mind.

Getting up from the table, she grabbed a little-used keyring from the drawer and hurried out to her car.

* * *

It had been a long meeting. Stefan had a headache and a feeling of apprehension. On the other hand, Turesson's reaction to his and Ahlqvist's confession had been a relief. Stefan was well aware that Turesson could have hauled them over the coals for breaking and entering if he had wanted. He was glad that the chief had instead taken a more practical course of action.

"We'll say that we had an anonymous tip-off," Turesson had explained to the two of them. "I can say that this book was sent anonymously to you, Peter. I see Matsson's been stupid enough to actually write his name and address inside the cover, which is lucky for us. I don't doubt that his fingerprints will also turn up on the photos inside the book."

They adjourned to the conference room, and Turesson called the rest of the team together. They waited while the chief took Solberg to his office and explained the situation – minus the truth about how the photos had been discovered. When the two rejoined the rest of the team Solberg looked pale, but determined. Turesson was flushed and more animated than Stefan had ever seen him before.

Then they talked. They discussed the new evidence, formulated theories, tried to create a coherent plan of action. The discussion lasted the rest of the morning, and well into the afternoon.

Stefan found himself unable to keep quiet, stung out of his usual silence by his discovery. The others could not possibly know why this was so important to him. They also didn't know about the other photo he had found, the one that was now burning a hole in his jacket pocket and that, more than anything, goaded him into action. This was personal, even though he couldn't let on about it.

By the end of the meeting, they finally had a plan. Matsson's house would be searched, this time with a warrant. Stefan and Ahlqvist would do more digging on Matsson's background and associates. Solberg would speak to the specialist child protection unit. Everyone seemed fired up and eager to get going, and there was a scramble for the door once Turesson dismissed the meeting.

Stefan slunk back to Kalle Pedersen's office once more, and closed the door. Closing his eyes, he put his head down on the desk, cocooning himself away from the world. His temples throbbed, the perfect accompaniment to the buzzing in his ears. He let his mind wander, images and thoughts slipping in and out of his consciousness.

It was as he had thought it would be. Making the first move in a case like this was like lifting a rock and watching the insects underneath scurry out from underneath. He had known this already, had thought he was prepared for what he would find under this particular rock, but it still disgusted and frightened him.

_I'm not a kid any more_ , he had to remind himself.  _I'm not powerless. I know what I have to do. It needs to be done because I can't keep living this way any more_.

There was another thing that he knew he needed. Getting up from the desk, he went to Ahlqvist's office and excused himself. As it was Friday afternoon, Ahlqvist understood. They agreed to meet the following evening.

Stefan got into his car and drove away. He took the road south, not slowing until he finally caught sight of the dull gleam of the Baltic under the setting winter sun.


	6. Night Falls

Quiet. It was so quiet. Save for the wind in the conifers and the crunch of frozen gravel under his feet it was almost silent out here. He had craved peace and quiet, but now it was almost too much for him. The sound of the wind in the branches reminded him of another time, long ago, when the storm had whipped through the branches of a darker, more forbidding forest. A time when his strongest instinct was to run, fast and far. Well, he knew where that had got him.

Rubbing the long scar on his arm, Stefan took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the pines. He was home, at least that was something. It would be dark soon. He would have to go inside, turn on all the lights and make a phone call. There didn't have to be silence. He didn't have to be alone.

He pulled his sleeve down and walked wearily towards the cottage.

* * *

Linda stood in the kitchen, wondering why the hell she had actually come here. There was nothing useful to be found in the house. What had she hoped to find? She should have known better than to trust the sort of half-formed plan that her brain tended to concoct when she was recovering from a migraine. Even worse than that, it dawned on her that she was actually snooping on Stefan. What the hell for?

She rubbed her head, furious with herself. Of course there was nothing here that would tell her anything. If she wanted to understand Stefan's role in this murky affair she would have to ask him herself. Perhaps this time he would tell her.

She turned to leave, picking up her jacket from where she had flung it on the kitchen table, and as she did so she heard the cottage door creak open. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she flattened herself against the wall by the kitchen door, scarcely daring to peek round the corner to see who on earth had come so unexpectedly to the cottage.

* * *

As he put his key in the lock, Stefan realised that the door was already unlocked. A wave of fear crashed over him. He had locked it before he left, right? Holding his breath and lifting his gun from its holster, he opened the door as quietly as possible and slid inside, pointing the gun at the empty room.

He was about to spring through the door into the hallway when he saw her, peering at him out of the kitchen. The hand holding the gun dropped to his side and he took some deep but ragged breaths of relief.

"It's you. Thank God. I thought I'd been burgled."

Linda slipped out of the kitchen and came and stood opposite him, a weak smile on her lips.

"What are you doing here anyway?" he said. "Was there something you forgot when you moved out?"

"Something like that. I could ask you the same thing. I thought you were in Växjö for the duration?"

"I had to come back." Stefan sank onto the couch. "I needed to talk to you. And..."

"You just needed to come home for a bit?"

"Something like that."

* * *

The sun had gone down. Stefan had switched the lights on in the living room, thinking how bare it looked. It was cold, just as it had been when he and Linda had first moved in. He had never got round to fixing that radiator on the back wall.

For a few minutes, while he thought about how to begin the conversation, he paced around the room, until Linda said he was making her nervous. Then he sat on the couch. Linda sat next to him and he gave her a small, anxious smile.

It was Linda who began.

"How are you?"

"Fine. I'm fine."

Linda looked at him for a long time without saying anything. She was seeing the dark circles under his eyes, the three-day growth of stubble on his face, the hollowness in his cheeks. He hadn't been eating well and it showed. He looked at the floor.

"No, I'm not fine," he admitted.

"I didn't think you were. I've been worried about you, in fact. You've not been yourself this last while."

"I need a drink," said Stefan suddenly, getting up from the couch. "Want one?"

"No, I've had a migraine."

Stefan shrugged and disappeared into the kitchen. When he came back he was carrying a large tumbler and a bottle of Finnish vodka, the only alcohol that he could find in the cupboard.

"What's going on, Stefan?" Linda said. "Whatever's the matter I want to help you, if you'll just let me."

Stefan felt his resolve begin to crack. If only he could just come clean to her, tell her about all this baggage that he'd been dragging around all these years. But he didn't think he could find the words. Not yet. The can of worms it would open would be too much to deal with at the moment, and would almost inevitably end with him being taken off the case just as he had decided that this was one case that he really wanted - no, needed - to be on. It would have to wait.

_God only knows how tired I am of all this. How much longer can keep going before it all comes spilling out?_

With a painful sigh he slumped into his corner of the sofa. His hand went to his face and he rubbed his eyes, not wanting her to see that they were suddenly wet.

"I'll be all right," he said in a muffled voice.

"Will you?"

He nodded and looked up and her and took a deep breath before he spoke.

"That suspect I asked you to find out about – Lars Matsson. Did you come up with anything?"

* * *

It was late. They had been talking for so long that Linda's throat was getting sore. The scene had also shifted to the police station, Stefan having demanded to see exactly what she had found. She didn't tell him how much of what she knew she had shared with her father, only that the team had been brought in to find out the truth behind the anonymous phonecall they had received.

Stefan stared at the computer screen with an intensity that she had rarely seen before. He asked so many questions, demanding to know everything they had found out, but she didn't have much to tell him.

"Do you think this is related to the case you're working on?" she asked.

He glanced up at her.

"If it's not, then it means there's two groups of these sickos in southern Sweden." He shuddered, muttering something under his breath as he rubbed his face in exhaustion.

"I think they are linked. I  _hope_  they're linked, otherwise..."

He trailed off, not wanting or needing to finish the sentence. Linda knew what was implied. As far as she could see, the only way the situation could be worse would be if there were two groups of people putting children at risk.

She sat down next to him and told him about her conversation with Officer Lisiewicz. Stefan listened intently, eyes fixed on her. She told him about the suspected trafficking, showed him the names Lisiewicz had given her, pointed out the suspect she recognised. She thought she saw a glimpse of recognition in his eyes as he read down the list, but he said nothing.

"Do you know any of these names?" she asked.

"Maybe," he said. "Can I have a copy of this? I want look into some of these people when I get back to Växjö."

She nodded, watching him, waiting to see if he said anything else, but he stayed silent. She knew when his mind was working overtime, even when he didn't say anything.

"What are you thinking?" she said quietly.

He looked at her with exhausted, bloodshot eyes, surprised and taken aback. For a moment or two he seemed to be trying to come up with a response. Eventually he made up his mind.

"I know this guy," he murmured, tapping a name on the list. Linda peered at the name: Rolf Liljegren.

"How? Who is he?"

"He knew my dad."

"In Borås?"

Stefan nodded.

"Do we know where he lives now?"

Linda shook her head and turned to the computer. A quick search of available records showed that he lived in a small village near Ystad. There wasn't much else to go on, and it was unclear why he had attracted Lisiewicz's attention.

"You've got to get more information!" Stefan's voice was hoarse. He paced around the room. Linda supposed it had been a shock for him to find someone he knew mixed up in this investigation. "We need to know more about Liljegren, and what he's up to. You've got to help me, Linda." He grasped her arm, almost pleading with her. It was Linda's turn to be taken aback.

"Of course I'll help," she said. "But why are you wound up about this?"

Stefan sunk back down onto a chair and put his head in his hands.

"It's just a shock to see his name, that's all. On top of everything else. That's why I need your help. I can't do all this on my own."

"You don't  _have_  to. You've got me, and the rest of the team. And your team in Växjö. Whatever's going on here, we  _will_  figure it out."

Stefan gave her a tired smile. It troubled her to see how worn out he looked. But had she known half of what was going through his mind, it would have troubled her twice as much.

* * *

Stefan lay in the dark.  _Rolf Liljegren._ He had known that sooner or later this man's shadow would be cast over his life again. Actually, that was wrong. His whole life since late childhood had been lived out in Rolf Liljegren's shadow. He had seen Roffe's face so many times in dreams, even more so in the last few months. He still remembered Roffe's unwanted touch as if it were yesterday, the nauseating smell of his cigarettes, his constant guilt trips to try and bend Stefan to his will.

Stefan felt sick. He had dreaded running across the man. Yet it was inevitable. It was necessary to confront him, even though Stefan thought he would never feel ready for it. And now he knew Roffe was linked to his case. The photograph burning a hole in his jacket pocket told him that. It told him that somewhere along the way Roffe had crossed paths with Lars Matsson.

_I'm going to get you both,_  Stefan thought,  _and hell mend you when I do._

He turned over. The Finnish vodka was doing its job, and he felt heavy and fuzzy-headed. In spite of everything he would soon be asleep. From the other side of the room he could hear Linda's steady breathing. It amazed him that she had agreed to stay over, but he was grateful anyway.

"You don't have to do this alone," she had said. "We  _will_  figure this out."

It had been hard to stop himself blurting out how important those words were to him, but perhaps she already had an idea of it anyway. And she seemed to care enough to come back to the cottage and keep him company. Because she was here he could finally relax. He glanced over at her as she slept on the spare mattress by the window.

"Don't go anywhere," he whispered to her unheeding form. "I need you."


	7. Shadows and Sunlight

When she woke in the morning she thought he had gone. Her head was still heavy and aching, and the medication she had taken had sent her into a deep and prolonged sleep. Rolling over on the mattress, she squinted at the familiar room and rubbed her eyes. His bed was empty, the cottage silent. Outside, the sun was already high in the sky, its golden rays pouring in through the windows.

Linda got to her feet and shuffled to the kitchen. No sign of Stefan. She rubbed her eyes again, and made herself some coffee. When it was brewed, she took the mug to the door and stood looking at the outside world.

It was a beautiful morning. The world looked fresh and clean, new snow gleaming on the dunes and the birds calling to each other among the trees. Linda wished she could enjoy it more, but it was hard to ignore the feeling of foreboding that had been gnawing at her for what seemed like years now. She grabbed a discarded blanket to wrap around herself and wandered outside, towards the dunes, and sat on an upturned boat, drinking the rest of her coffee.

In the distance she saw him.

Stefan was walking, far along the beach, head bowed against the wind. He seemed to be in a world of his own, carrying a great weight on his shoulders. Linda sighed.  _How can I help you, Stefan, if you won't you tell me what's wrong?_

As if he had become aware of her gaze, he suddenly stopped walking and looked back towards her. Linda finished her coffee, put the mug down and hopped off the boat, pulling the blanket tighter round her body as she walked out onto the sand.

Stefan stood motionless and stared out to sea. As she reached him he avoided looking her in the eye, fixing his gaze instead on the horizon, as if he expected the answer to his problems to come sailing over the Baltic to him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just terrific." He dragged his attention away from the sea and looked at her at last. He looked slightly more rested than he had done the previous night, but he needed a shave and a hot shower, she thought. "How's your head?"

"Well, it still works..." She was unsure whether to make light of the situation. "How's yours? That was quite a lot of vodka that you put away."

"So?"

"So... I'm just saying, I'd be surprised if you didn't have a bit of a headache as well." She took a step backwards. Stefan shook his head and pushed his rather windblown hair out of his face.

"I'm all right," he said. "Just tired."

"Have a rest, then," said Linda.

 

* * *

 

Dark, then light. Deep shade, then blinding sun.

The road was a long one, wandering as it did, in and out of the low sunlight among the woods of northern Skåne. Time and again Stefan found himself submerged in the shadows amongst the trees, only to emerge again into the light. As he drove, he felt his vision clearing, began to understand the road lying ahead of him. He was only just beginning to believe he had the strength to do what he knew had to be done.

_I've been lost in this forest for so long_.  _It took so many years for me to make sense of what happened to me and even now, I still don't think I can really handle the reality of what was done to me, but perhaps I'm on the right road now.  Maybe there's light on the other side after all._

Linda had persuaded him to stay at home an extra day.  He showered and slept, lay on the couch and read through the file she had brought him.  In the evening they had gone out to a small restaurant by Stortorget, just two friends having a quiet meal together.  It almost felt normal, as if the monster had retreated to its cave for a while.  Then he had crashed out at Linda’s place and slept ten hours on her couch, waking to find her absent-mindedly tidying the lounge, casting an occasional bemused smile at him.

Linda.  Somehow, he would have to tell her what this was about.  He hardly knew how he was going to find the words, but he felt she needed to know, finally, what was happening in his head.  He needed her on his side, no matter what the fallout would be.  He needed allies to help him pick his way through this mire.  To guide him out from the midst of the forest.

A deer ran out from among the trees.  Stefan jerked back to reality and stamped on the brake, forced to concentrate again on the real forest that surrounded him.

The sun began to sink in the sky.  Stefan stopped and ate a small meal in a cafe in Kristianstad, all the time planning how he would explain the situation to Ahlqvist, what their plan of attack should be.  Linda had promised to raise the matter of Rolf Liljegren with Kurt and the rest of the team, but the Växjö CID now also needed to be aware of him, and all other names on Linda’s list.  He sighed at the thought of all the work this would generate.  Still, better busy than idle.

He’d tell his colleagues what they had to know, but it would still be only part of the truth.  Nobody but Stefan knew the whole truth.

 

 

* * *

 

Wallander looked out of his window at the street below.

“You’ve been talking to Stefan?” he said into the phone.

“Yeah.  I hope you’re not going to be mad.  There were some things he needed to know.”

“But this investigation has nothing to do with Stefan!”  Wallander rubbed an itchy spot above his left eyebrow and scowled down at the row of cars parked outside, as if Linda and Stefan were both there, grinning nonchalantly up at him.  “What were you thinking, Linda?”

“Actually, I think it might have something to do with him.  The smuggling case he’s been working on seems to have turned into something more sinister.”

“Sinister?  What do you mean?”  Wallander turned away from the window, picked up his glass of Scotch and drained it.  Feeling the sudden need to sit down, he collapsed into an armchair.

“He won’t tell me everything, but it looks like they’ve uncovered some links to a possible paedophile ring.  It might be the same group that’s been hinted at to us.  He thinks he has a definite lead, which might tie in to the names we’ve been given.  And, I don’t know.  There’s something else, I think...”

“Something else?”

“We’d better have a talk tomorrow.”

“Yes, I think we’d better.  I wish you’d told me about this before, Linda.”

“I should have, but I didn’t know...” Linda’s voiced trailed off and there was silence on the line for a few moments.

“No, I suppose not.  There’s a lot we don’t see coming until it hits us head on.  Anyway, one way or another, we’ve got to get on top of this before it gets any worse.”

“I know.  I can’t stand thinking about those creeps.”

“Try not to think about it any more tonight.  We’ll talk in the morning, yes?”

“Yep.  Night, Dad.”

Wallander put the phone down and shifted uneasily over to the stereo.  He needed to relax, and the Scotch alone just wasn’t doing it.  He put a CD in the drive and lay down on the sofa as a quiet piano melody filled the room.

No police officer likes dealing with potential cases of abuse, and during his many years in the job Wallander had seen enough abuse cases to know that he thoroughly detested them.  He dreaded what they might find in this instance.

And there was also Stefan.  He had sent Stefan away to give the younger man a chance to clear his head.  A nice, inconsequential smuggling case, with enough downtime to let him rest a little.  So he wanted to know how the hell Stefan had suddenly been thrown back into an investigation like this.

He wondered how the hell Stefan would cope.

  

* * *

 

Stefan dropped his bag on the floor and hung up his jacket on the back of the door before collapsing onto the bed.  Nothing in the room had changed in his absence, except that Housekeeping had made the bed and changed the towels in the bathroom.  A faint smell of soap permeated the air.  The room was calm, orderly and completely unhomelike.

Stefan’s phone rang, breaking the silence.  He started, picked it up and put it to his ear.

“Stefan?” Ahlqvist’s voice rang in his ear.  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages!  Where have you been?”

“I’ve been driving.  Sorry Peter, I know I missed our meeting, but I had to stay in Ystad a bit longer.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that!”  Ahlqvist’s voice had a tone of excitement that made Stefan sit up.

“What’s happened?”

“We’ve got a witness, Stefan.  At long last we’ve got a witness!  Not only can he tell us about the smuggling ring, but he also knows all about what Matsson’s been up to.”

Stefan sat bolt upright.

“Who?  Who is it?”

“Does the name Ingvar Gunnarsson mean anything to you?”

“Vaguely.  Didn’t I see his name in the smuggling investigation files?”

“Yes you did.  He was the poor fool we were watching who got beaten senseless last year.  It seems to have persuaded him to keep his mouth shut.  However, we found it hasn’t had the quite same effect on his younger brother.”

“And the brother’s willing to talk?”

“It seems so.  Look, can you come round to my place?  I can explain it all properly to you then.”

“You bet.”

Grabbing a pen and paper from the desk, Stefan scribbled down the directions Ahlqvist gave him, then put his jacket back on and made once more for the car, his heart racing and his mouth dry.

_One step closer_ , he thought.  One step closer to Matsson and, by extension, to Roffe.  The photograph was still burning a hole in his pocket.


	8. The Boy

_He didn’t remember how he had gotten into the house, but he knew something was wrong.  Moving from room to dingy room he called out again and again, knowing that there was someone there, if only they would just respond to him, but no voice answered.  He stopped in the hallway, an inexplicably long, dark corridor that seemed to stretch endlessly back into the gloom.  He shuddered at the thought of moving into the darkness, but against his will his feet carried him down the hall.  He felt himself drawn to the doorway on his left and, pushing open the door, he looked into the room, knowing that something horrible was waiting there for him.  A bare lightbulb cast an unbearably harsh light over the peeling wallpaper and frayed carpet of the mouldering room.  As if in a trance, he walked to the sofa – the only piece of furniture in the room – and looked down at the lifeless figure of Stefan lying there.  He put his hand out to shake Stefan, to try and wake him, but the young man’s body was stiff and stone cold, as he had known it would be.  When he withdrew his hand, he saw that his fingers were damp with blood.  In panic he tried to shout for help, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and no sound would come out of his throat.  As he looked down at Stefan, unable to do anything to help him, Stefan’s eyes snapped open and stared accusingly into his._

* * *

Kurt Wallander awoke with a start and flopped over onto his back, feeling several beads of sweat trickle down his forehead.  He rubbed his face with a slightly trembling hand and turned on the bedside light, then lay still for several minutes until his pulse returned to normal.  It was not unknown for him to have nightmares, but this?  He shivered.  He had never believed in omens, but this dream had been so vivid, so horrifying, that he felt sure it must be some kind of warning from somewhere in the back of his mind.

Sitting up, he looked at the clock.  4:49 am.  Dog-tired as he was, he doubted he would be able to get back to sleep.  The dream images still plagued him, and would probably continue to do so for most of the day.  But what was it all about, anyway?  He supposed that on some level he must be more worried about Stefan than he’d been willing to admit.  Perhaps he should call him later and speak to him, find out how he was actually getting on with the Växjö force – and perhaps a little about the troubling turn their case had taken.  Yes, on reflection, perhaps that would be a good idea.  However, an iota of doubt persisted.  Was Stefan possibly in danger somehow?  Could he be doing more to try and protect him from whatever the threat might be?

Wallander shook his head hard.  How the hell could he protect someone from something he didn’t even know about himself?  Assuming that there even was a threat, of course.  And what made him think that Stefan would want his help?  The last time they’d spoken, the younger man’s animosity towards him had been almost palpable.  Most likely, thought Wallander, all these absurd worries were nothing more than the early morning ramblings of a half-awake brain unsettled by a nightmare.  All the same, though, he couldn’t shake off his conviction that he needed to speak to Stefan, if only for his own reassurance.

With a groan he got out of bed and wrapped the quilt round himself before padding into the kitchen, where he began to make some coffee.  Might as well try and do something productive.

Wallander sat at the kitchen table for an hour, cup of coffee in one hand, bundle of case notes in the other.  They had names (some of which he recognised) and some faces to go with the names.  They even had a couple of witness statements culled from incident reports and prior intelligence-gathering.  What they really needed, though, was some concrete evidence, and he knew he would probably need a warrant to be able to search for it.  For some time, Wallander pondered how he could persuade Holgersson to get him a warrant, before concluding that it would be an uphill struggle.  He would have to find another way, and the thought troubled him.

He would find a way, though.  He had done it before: putting together cases almost out of thin air, finding proof, one way or another.  He thought about how he had castigated Frank Borg and his unorthodox (and unethical) methods, but were they really so different, he and Frank?  When it really counted, wouldn’t he do the same as Frank if it meant putting an end to a repulsive crime?  The thought did nothing to improve his mood.

With a grimace, Wallander swallowed the bitter dregs of his now tepid coffee and got up from the table.  He went back into the bedroom and threw some clothes on.  He would get an early start at the station, and focus all his attention on the original name that their anonymous whistle-blower had supplied: Magnus Rhunberg.

_One way or another, I’ll pin you down, Rhunberg_.

If they could crack him, perhaps there was hope.

Outside, he set his face against the wind that whistled down Mariagatan and set off walking.  The horror of his nightmare was fading, but he was unable to shake the feeling that something somewhere was very wrong. _  
_

* * *

It was the sound of his office door shutting that made him look up from the desk to see Linda standing in front of him.

“You’re early,” she said.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, simply.

She sat down and glanced at the stack of paper in front of him.

“Making any progress?”

“I don’t know.”  Wallander rubbed a hand across his eyes.  “I want to speak to this Rhunberg, though.”

“Me too.  Do you think he’ll talk?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to lean on him.  His background’s murky, to say the least.”

“Don’t forget the names we got from the Polish police too.  I managed to look at one or two of them.  As you say, the backgrounds are murky.  The whole business gives me the creeps.”

Linda pulled the sleeves of her jumper down over her hands and put a hand to her forehead, rubbing the faint frown lines that had formed there.  She still looked pale and drained.  Wallander sat back in his chair and studied her face for a few moments, wondering how badly she was being affected by the stress of their current investigation.

_You shouldn’t be exposed to this,_ he thought.  _You should have left these dreadful things for me to cope with, without having them in your head too._

His urge to protect her was suddenly very strong.  Nevertheless, they had a job to do.

Out loud he said: “We were going to have a talk about Stefan, weren’t we?”

She nodded and settled into her chair.  It was going to be a long morning. _  
_

* * *

The youngster fidgeted in his chair and, for the third or fourth time, got up, paced to the window and peered out.  Stefan thought he understood.  It was difficult to have this kind of conversation.  Difficult or impossible.

“You mustn’t worry now, Elias,” Solberg was saying.  “You’re safe, nobody knows you’re here.  And you can tell us everything in confidence, you know that.  You’re not in any trouble – we’re going to help you – and Ingvar, if we can track him down.”  She went on a little longer, putting Elias at ease and explaining what would happen, and how.

Stefan wondered how many times she’d done this before.  She seemed to know exactly what to say to the boy, and the tone of voice in which to say it.  He glanced at her.  She was smiling kindly at Elias, relaxed and attentive, like a counsellor or a concerned friend.  A real expert.

The boy opposite them relaxed a little.  He stared down at his hands and began to pick at his fingernails.

“I’m scared,” he said.  “I can’t remember when I wasn’t scared.”

He glanced towards the window.

“When they put Ingvar in the hospital I thought that would be it, he wouldn’t want to deal with them again.  But it only got worse.”

Elias planted his feet on the coffee table in front of him and wrapped his arms round his knees.

“How did it get worse?” Solberg asked.

“He had to do even more for them.”  Elias’ voice dropped to a mumble.  “And I had to do more as well.”

“Do more?  What do you mean?  More of what?” Stefan cut in.

Elias gazed back at him through the blond fringe that hung into his eyes, his face a picture of abject misery.  His pale eyes seemed deeply haunted, and he appeared to stare straight through the two officers as if nothing really existed to him except his own pain and fear.  Stefan had been told that the boy had just turned fifteen, but he seemed much younger, skinny and fragile as he was.

“What do you think I mean?”  Elias’ voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper.  “You wouldn’t be asking me about Lars if you didn’t know what he’s like, would you?”

He stared at Stefan.  Stefan held his gaze and nodded.

“I know what he’s like all right.  That’s why I need you to tell me everything you know, so we can stop him.  So he can get what he deserves.”

Elias gave a vague nod and pushed his hair out of his eyes with a shaky hand.

“We understand this is hard for you,” said Solberg.  “Take as long as you need.”

“You’ll never understand how hard this is!” Elias cried, his eyes gleaming with unshed tears.

_But I do understand_ , thought Stefan.  _I understand much more than anyone realises_.  He swallowed the lump that had crept up into his throat.  Out loud, he said some calming words to try and reassure the boy.  Damn it, Solberg’s manner was wearing off on him now.  He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.  _I wish this was over_.

Nevertheless, he sat still for almost two hours as Elias told them his story – a long account of abuse and manipulation that was sickeningly familiar.  Matsson had treated Elias in much the same way as Roffe had treated Stefan.  And it wasn’t just Matsson, but two or three of his objectionable friends, who seemed to have been passing Elias around among themselves since he was eleven or twelve.  There were photos too.

“He blackmails me, you know,” said Elias, his voice shaking.  “He said that if I told anyone he’d post photos of me all over the internet and everyone would see what sort of person I am.  Or if I don’t do what he tells me to do, or what the other guys tell me.  And he said he could put Ingvar back in hospital like those guys did last year.”

Elias looked away and stared down at the floor.

“He doesn’t take pictures of me any more, or... touch me or anything.  I’m getting too old for him now, know what I mean?”  He glanced back up at them.  Stefan nodded at him.  He knew all right.

“But he’s still got all the pictures of me, and he’s got other boys.  He always did.”

“Do you know any of these boys?  Would you recognise them if you saw them?”

Elias didn’t reply straight away.  After a few seconds he nodded slowly and looked up at Stefan.

“Ye-es.  Yes, I’d know some of them.  Not all of them, but one or two.  Can you... can you get them away from Lars?”

“You bet we will, if we can find them.” _  
_

* * *

Wallander shivered.  The dismal cold had leached into his bones.  Above him, the heavy grey sky promised yet more snow.  At least they were being spared the damp and mud that a thaw would bring, but this was little comfort at present.  He had begun to wish quite desperately that he was somewhere far away from here.  Nevertheless, although he could flee to the most remote tropical island if he wanted to, he would never be able to leave this case behind him.  The anxiety that had been eating at him would never let up until he had reached a solution, both to this investigation and to the problem of Stefan.

Stefan.  He sighed.  He was going to have to make a phonecall later.

Linda came back round the front of the house.

“No signs of life anywhere,” she said.  “This is a miserable place.”

“Yes, it is.  Where’s Martinsson?”

“Over here,” called a voice from round the corner.

When they joined him, Martinsson was examining a large-ish van parked by the side of the house.

“Is this Rhunberg a builder or something?” he said, pulling at the rear doors, which were locked.

“Not that I know of.”  Wallander tried the driver’s door.  Also locked.

Linda had wandered back round the rear of the house.  Presently they heard her calling them.  Wallander hurried to join her.

“Look at this,” she said.  “He left a spare key in the plant pot.”

For a moment they looked at each other, then he nodded to her.  She put the key in the lock and pulled open the door.

Whatever they were expecting to find in the house, they could never have been ready for what confronted them. _  
_

* * *

“What’s going to happen to him?” Stefan demanded.

Solberg shook her head and huddled deeper into her padded jacket.

They were walking near Växjösjön, with the icy wind whipping over the surface of the lake, blowing their hair into their eyes and taking their breath away.  Solberg had insisted on it, said that she wanted to clear her head.  Stefan reflected that, had she been here, this would have been one of the rare times when Linda would have gone for a cigarette.  Solberg, however, didn’t smoke.

She didn’t say much either.  She had stopped, and was staring over the water, towards the houses on the other side.  Finally she answered him.

“We’ll keep him in the safe house, of course.  God only knows how long for, though.  We need to interview him again...  A lot of it’s up to Martin now.  I’m going to speak to Social Services as well, try and get a counsellor to see Elias.”  She looked down, grinding the toe of her shoe into the dirt.  “Heaven knows he’s been through stuff that no kid should ever have to go through.”

“Tell me about it,” said Stefan, through gritted teeth.

She looked up at him.

“You were very good with him.  Like you were on his wavelength.”

Stefan flinched.  He had an uncomfortable feeling of being caught out somehow.

“No, it’s just...  It’s like you said.  Nobody should have to go through that.  It’s not fair that kids like Elias are suffering, and the creeps who abuse them get to walk around free, like they’ve done nothing wrong.”  He kicked savagely at a loose pebble, sending it bouncing along the path in front of him.

Solberg was looking at him, the same expression of sympathy on her face as when she had spoken to Elias.

“This case has really touched a nerve, hasn’t it?”

He didn’t reply.  His whole body was a raw nerve.  It all hurt so damn much.

* * *

Wallander leaned wearily on his desk.  The office was silent at last.  Everyone had gone home except Holgersson, who stubbornly refused to leave her office, choosing instead to make call after call to various higher-ups who needed to be kept abreast of the latest, most unwelcome development in their investigation.  Putting his head in his hands, Wallander shut his eyes and tried to block everything out.  It didn’t work; instead the unwelcome images flooded back with a vengeance.  The stacks and stacks of photos they’d found...

He shuddered, forcing himself to think of something else.  There would be time enough to deal with the implications tomorrow.  And at least they had evidence now.

He got up from the desk and pulled out his phone.  He still had to make that phonecall.  Now was as good a time as any.

He dialled the number and listened to the ringing from the other end, praying that Stefan would pick up.  Suddenly Stefan’s voice came on the line.

“Kurt?”

“Hello Stefan.  We need to talk.”


	9. Endless Winter

The sky was the colour of lead and seemed just as heavy, threatening snow at any minute. From the moment that Stefan had opened his eyes that morning till the point that he found himself driving through Växjö, trying to remember where the hell he was going, it scarcely seemed to have got any lighter. Where had the sun gone, that had somehow reassured him during these last few days? Was it still there, hiding behind the impending snowstorm?

He had tried hard, but still had no idea what to make of the previous night's phonecall from Kurt. It had been strange enough to see Kurt's number flash up on his phone when it began to ring, but the ensuing conversation had been even stranger. Kurt had been somewhat annoyed with him for speaking to Linda about their respective cases, that was only to be expected really, but then he had started asking Stefan if everything was all right. How was the case going in Växjö? Was Stefan okay? Almost as if he were worried about Stefan's health. S _o you care after all, do you?_ For a minute Stefan wondered what Linda had been saying to her father. On the other hand maybe Kurt, in his own awkward way, was trying out to him. _Are you on my side after all, Kurt?_

Stefan sighed. Perhaps Kurt had just had one too many whiskies. It was possible, but he wanted to believe it was more than that. In spite of his discomfort at being made to talk about his feelings, part of him had begun to realise that he would have to unburden himself eventually. When he did, it was going to be messy. Better to do it with someone who was on his side, who he could trust. His head ached at the thought.

Beside him in the passenger seat Solberg started and looked round at him.

"You missed the turn!"

"Did I? I can't remember where I'm going." With a cursory glance to check for other traffic, he did a u-turn. "All these streets look the same to me."

"They're not that alike. You're just not paying attention – we were only there yesterday."

"Sorry," he snapped, swinging the car into the bend.

Solberg looked at him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that she was quietly furious.

"That's enough of that, okay?" she said. "Just cool it; if not for me then for Elias."

He nodded, teeth clenched. He would do it for Elias, but also for the sake of a little eleven-year-old boy who, all those years ago, had been desperate to be rescued.

* * *

"So, you haven't been able to interview Rhunberg?"

Lisa Holgersson cast a weary gaze over her small team of subordinates, feeling that she really was getting too old for this now. An incipient headache crawled across her forehead and ensconced itself in her right temple. She put a hand to her aching eyes.

Wallander shook his head.

"He's not been home. I had Linda search the property records to see if he has any other properties, but he wasn't at the summer house we traced to him either. We did, however, find his photograph collection and his computer."

From across the table, Nyberg grunted in disgust and looked over at Martinsson, who nodded back at him.

"Nyberg and I looked through his computer," Martinsson explained. "We found more photos. There's a couple of specialist child protection officers coming from Stockholm today to help with those, in fact. Hopefully they'll be able to point us in the direction of some of his... friends."

"Good," said Holgersson. "The more of these people that we can apprehend, the better. But what about Rhunberg? Do we know anything about his whereabouts?"

"He's been to Thailand lately," Wallander laid his hand firmly on the table. "That's all we know. He should have got back the day we raided his house, in fact, but there's been no sign of him."

"Someone's sheltering him." Linda's voice pierced the slightly stale air of the conference room with a stridency that she hadn't intended. Slightly taken aback at herself, she continued.

"Somehow he found out that he's being investigated, and he's hiding somewhere. Someone must know where he is."

The others around the table nodded.

"Who would be hiding someone like Rhunberg?" Holgersson wanted to know.

No-one could say for sure, but at the back of her mind Linda had a tiny idea of where she wanted to start looking.

* * *

"Where's my brother?" Ingvar Gunnarsson yelled. His voice, unpleasantly shrill, echoed round the bare interview room. "I want to see him. He's entitled to have an adult with him. He's just a kid, for God's sake!"

"In spite of what you seem to have been told, Elias isn't in any trouble. And he's got a social worker and a lawyer with him, and until you calm down I think he could do without your company," Solberg said, folding her arms.

"Damn, you're a cold bitch," snarled Gunnarsson. "Why was I told he'd been arrested?"

"It got you out of the woodwork, didn't it?" said Stefan dryly.

Gunnarsson glared at him and threw himself down into a chair.

"That was low," he snorted.

"We're trying to protect Elias – and you, if you'll let us," said Solberg. "Have you never even noticed what some of your associates have been doing to your brother, let alone to you?"

"How dare you!" Gunnarsson pulled himself up out of the chair and leaned across the table to Solberg. "Have you any idea how many times I tried to get us away from those perverts? Why do you think they broke my nose last year, huh?"

He pointed at the crooked bridge of his nose.

"It was because I told them that I was finally going to spill their sordid little secrets. I don't really care about the other things that they do, but that stuff's sick! So then they did this to me..."

He pulled his t-shirt down, showing a large, jagged scar spread across his chest, then sank back into the chair again, an expression of defeat on his face. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper.

"...And they said they'd kill me, but first they'd kill Elias in the slowest, most painful way they could think of, and make me watch. What could I do?" His voice cracked and he swallowed hard, rubbing a hand across his eyes.

Solberg nodded. She and Stefan were both quiet for a moment.

"You should have come to us a lot earlier," said Solberg. "We can protect both of you, but you have to have to help us too, okay? For a start, can you tell us who exactly 'they' are?"

* * *

A fog had rolled in from the Baltic and settled over the low Skånsk coastal land. It seemed to muffle all sounds, from the waves on the seashore to the normally lively little birds singing in the beechwoods. It had also halted the thaw that had promised to come. As a result, Linda stood ankle-deep in snow, listening to the silence and wondering when this interminable winter would ever let up.

No-one was in the house, it seemed. She glanced at Svartman, who shrugged and tried to look encouraging. Empty houses were becoming a recurrent theme.

"Maybe the door's open?" Svartman volunteered.

Linda shook her head.

"Even if it is, we've got no good reason to go in. You know what'll happen if we don't follow procedure."

Svartman nodded and sighed, and they turned and began to tramp back to the car. It was then that they saw the middle-aged man coming towards them across the neighbouring garden, squinting at them as if he'd never seen a police officer before.

"Can I help you with something?" said Rolf Liljeberg.

* * *

"So didn't know anything at all about Matsson's little sideline?" Solberg drummed her fingers softly on the tabletop

"No, I told you already. It wasn't until about two years ago that I cottoned on to what they were doing to Elias. Do you think I'd have gotten involved with them if I'd known what they were up to? Do you honestly think I'd have dragged Elias into _that_?"

Stefan nodded. In spite of his distaste for their witness, he couldn't help feeling a glimmer of pity for him.

"It wasn't just him that was responsible for the abuse, was it?"

Gunnarsson shook his head.

"He's got a couple of ... I don't know what you'd call them. Buddies? Guys with the same sick inclinations as him. That kind of scum always seems to find each other. And there's this other guy he does jobs for, and made me do some work for a couple of times. Never knew his name, but a couple of us used to call him the Baron. There was just something about the way he used to boss us around – like he knew he was better than us, or something. I know for a fact that he and Matsson used to swap photos. He... he's got some of Elias." Gunnarsson's voice broke and he slumped in his chair. Stefan shuddered, repulsed by the thought of what Elias had gone through.

"So you met this 'Baron'?"

"Two or three times. Once seen never forgotten."

"So you'd recognise him if you saw him again."

"Yup."

"How much do you actually know about him?"

"Not much, except that he thinks he's invincible. He's not from round here. I think he lives in Skåne." Stefan's ears pricked up. Skåne? He knew they were on the right track. All he needed now to confirm all his suspicions was a photo to show to Gunnarsson.

"How _did_ you end up working for these people?" Solberg's voice cut through Stefan's reverie.

"Well I didn't want to keep working like a dog in the warehouse forever, did I?" Gunnarsson folded his arms and stared up at her. "And when Mum died I had to look after Elias as well, you know? He was still little and he needed all sorts of things I couldn't exactly afford without... you know, cheating the system a bit. And I found out I was pretty good at what I was being asked to do. Even made a sideline for myself – made some nice profits on Romanian wines and spirits."

"Yes, we know all about those," Solberg muttered dryly. "So your employer asked you if you'd like to help with the smuggling operations. Or did you ask him?"

"No, it wasn't my boss, he never had the nerve, but he knew a bloke – Johan Smits – who worked for this man in the 'import/export trade'." Gunnarsson gave them a knowing look and made quote signs with his fingers. "This bloke was looking for some help, so Arne, my boss at the time, put him on to me. I did alright, and eventually Smits said the big boss had told him to give me more to do."

"And that's when you met Matsson?"

Gunnarsson nodded.

"Yup," he said, quietly. "Worst decision of my life, that was, choosing to work with him. I should have stuck with Smits."

"A good honest criminal," said Stefan, shifting in his seat.

Solberg ignored his interjection.

"So who's this 'big boss'?" she asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. He's put himself well beyond reproach."

* * *

"Cheers!" said Ahlqvist, clinking his tumbler against Stefan's. "I think we've earned this, even if it's only apple juice!"

Stefan smiled and took a drink, glancing round the room with an unfamiliar sense of clearheadedness. For the time being, the monsters had retreated to their cave, leaving him able to climb this mountain that he had found himself on. Revenge would be sweet. _If it's the last thing I do, I'll make sure justice is done_. He looked over at Solberg staring out the window in a world of her own and wondered if she was thinking the same thing.

After a quick conference with Turesson, Ingvar Gunnarsson had been reunited with his brother, and they had been moved to a safe location until some witness protection officers arrived from Stockholm to take care of them. Gunnarsson had spent most of the day being interviewed and had grudgingly divulged a great deal of information, not just about the porn ring but also the smuggling operation. It finally felt like they were getting somewhere. The much-relieved expression on Turesson's face told its own story.

Elin Ahlqvist, who had greeted her husband and his colleagues at the door with only minimal surprise, carried a platter of sandwiches into the dining room and laid them on the table.

"Come on, you lot!" she called to them. "Anyone would think police officers never need to eat!"

"Wonderful, Elin," Turesson enthused, patting her shoulder. "You always have just what we need!"

Stefan gathered that Ahlqvist was in the habit of bringing not just work but other officers home from the station.

The four of them sat at the table and helped themselves. Stefan suddenly became acutely aware of his empty stomach for the first time that day and piled his plate with sandwiches. For half an hour calm descended and nobody said anything about police work. The grandfather clock ticked away by itself in the corner. Some children passed in the street outside, laughing about something known only to themselves. From another room, Elin Ahlqvist hummed a tune.

It was Turesson's phone that eventually broke the spell. He sighed and answered what was evidently a call from Pilqvist checking the security arrangements. Across the table, Ahlqvist rolled his eyes and took the last sandwich.

The others eventually dispersed, but Ahlqvist asked Stefan to stay for dinner. Stefan accepted, surprised but pleased. He had made a friend, in spite of himself.

After dinner they sat up till late, discussing the case, until Stefan noticed the time and announced that he should go and get some sleep.

"Thanks for staying," said Ahlqvist amiably, as he accompanied him to the door. "It was useful to chat about everything. We're going to have a lot of work to do tomorrow."

"I need to show Gunnarsson some photos in the morning," said Stefan. "To see if his 'Baron' is among our suspects."

Ahlqvist nodded in agreement, and the two said goodnight. Stefan drove back through the centre of Växjö to his hotel. Tomorrow could hardly come quickly enough now.

He settled into bed and, for once, fell asleep almost immediately.

The call came at 3:17am, bludgeoning into his sleep. He sat up, confused for a moment, then picked up the phone. The last image from his dream flickered in front of him: he had stopped running through the dark forest, and turned to face his pursuer, pointing the gun. He had pulled the trigger when the phone had rung.

"Yes?" he mumbled into the mouthpiece.

"Stefan? Is that you?" It was Solberg's voice. He was instantly wide awake. Something in her tone told him that something was very wrong.

"What's the matter?" he managed to say, his voice still thick from sleep.

"Stefan, I need you to come down to the safehouse. I don't know how, but someone's got in and attacked Ingvar."

Stefan sat upright.

"And Elias?"

"We can't find him. Please come. Quickly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter has been so long coming. If you've been waiting for this, then apologies: I'm a frustratingly slow writer these days - so much garbage going on in my life just now. But still, I'm resolved to update more frequently than every 18 months.


	10. Fallout

All was chaos.  Utter, noisy, uncontrollable chaos.  Stefan paced the shadows beyond the reach of the police cars’ lights.  He threw his head back and covered his face with his hands, a desperate and futile attempt to block out the noise and the relentless flashing blue lights.  Somewhere, a radio crackled and blared almost constant messages from the control room.  A few neighbours had gathered, and were demanding to know what was going on, to the chagrin of the officers manning the cordon, who knew nothing and were telling even less.  Further down the street a dog had started barking.  It was as if all the noise and confusion were trying to cram itself inside his head, Stefan thought.  He couldn’t stop it – any minute now would come the inevitable explosion in his brain, when his neurons hit breaking point.

Then he realised he was no longer alone.  Solberg had slipped into the shadows to join him.  She looked terrible, and for a moment he thought she was going to burst into tears.  It was yet another shock to see this usually stoic and coldly professional officer crumble before his eyes.  Then she regained control of herself.

“Got a cigarette?” she asked.

“I don’t smoke.  I didn’t know you did either.”

“I don’t.  But right now...” her voice trailed away.  “How the hell did this happen?”

Indeed, how the hell had it happened?  They sat down on a low wall, watching their colleagues come and go like a frantic swarm of ants, combing the house for any clue of what had been going on just an hour earlier.  The ambulance carrying Ingvar had long departed for the hospital and it seemed as if there were nothing to do now but wait and hope.

Presently Turesson appeared out of the midst of the commotion and headed towards them, shaking his head.

“You two should go home,” he said in a flat, exhausted voice.

“But what about Elias?”  Once again Solberg seemed on the verge of breaking down.  “We were supposed to protect him, Martin!  We failed, and who knows what sort of danger he’s in – if he’s even still alive.”

“That’s enough, Britta.”  Turesson laid a consoling hand on her shoulder.  “The crime scene guys are doing their best.  We can’t do much of a search for him till it gets light, and right now we just have to hope for the best.”

“Is that it?  ‘Hope for the best’?  What if the worst has happened already?”

“As I said, there’s not much we can do at the moment.  It won’t do Elias any good if we’re exhausted and emotional, so _please_ , you two, try and get some rest.  There’ll be a meeting at eight, and I _need_ you to be able to think straight, okay?”

With some reluctance Britta nodded and got up.  Turesson watched her go, then patted Stefan on the back.

“You go too.  At least try and rest for a while.”

Stefan nodded and they parted.  After climbing into his car, Stefan watched Turesson take a long phonecall, then drive away.  For a moment he sat completely still in the driver’s seat.  He had no idea what had happened at this allegedly safe location, and he had no intention of leaving until he at least had some hint of what had happened to Elias.  He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on a train of thought that was forming despite the confusion in his head.

_I’m a frightened young boy in an unfamiliar place.  My abusers have caught up with me and beaten my brother senseless.  Assuming they haven’t got me as well, what do I do?  Do I hide from them?  Or do I try to run away?_

If Elias had gone into hiding, surely the officers searching the property would have discovered him by now.  The house was not a very large one, and had an equally small garden containing a rickety shed.  Practically the first thing one of the crime scene officers had done was to look in the shed, which turned out to empty apart from a set of lawn chairs.  There was no sign that the boy had ever been in there.  Likewise, the whole house had been searched, including the cupboards and cellar, to no avail.

There were few signs of a struggle, apart from the blood-spattered hallway where the assailants had brutally beaten Ingvar.  So far, it hadn’t even been established how they got into the house, and nobody from outside had had noticed anything unusual.  Not even the officers posted to watch the house had noticed any sign of trouble until one of them had gone to make a routine security check of the premises at around three o’clock and found Ingvar unconscious and Elias missing.  So far it was impossible to say how the attackers had got in, and therefore if Elias had managed to flee it was hard to see which direction he would have gone in.

Stefan opened his eyes.  _Why_ had nobody noticed anything?  The house was under constant surveillance, for God’s sake.

He got out of the car and marched to the house, letting himself under the police tape.  The crime scene team had just about finished and were conferring by the front door.

“Is it all right to go in?” Stefan asked their supervisor.

“Be my guest,” said the woman, as she began climbing out of her blue contamination suit.  “You might want to watch where you put your feet, though.  In fact, put these on.”  She threw him a pair of blue plastic shoe covers before turning back to her team, who were gathered round their photographer, examining his shots of the scene.  Stefan slipped the covers on and stepped into the house.

The hall was liberally bloodstained.  Unsure of where to start looking, or even what he was looking for, Stefan stepped over the largest stain and went up the stairs.  The bedrooms and bathroom had been turned upside down, yielding nothing.  Stefan opened every door he could find, despite knowing it was pointless.  He pulled open the hatch to the attic and climbed the ladder.  The harsh light of the single bare bulb swinging from the rafters showed no sign of anyone having been there.  Dispirited, he climbed back down, went into one of the bedrooms, sat on the bed and put his head in his hands.

_We failed.  Yet again._

A cold breeze from the window ruffled his hair.  He looked up.  The window was wide open.

There was a technician rattling around on the landing, collecting some forgotten equipment.  Stefan called out to him.

“Hey!  Did one of you guys open this window?”

The technician shook his head.

“Nope.  That was open when we got here.  I should know, I was the first one in that room.”

Stefan jumped to his feet and raced to the window.  Below the window was a roughly three-metre drop to the roof of the little garage that adjoined the house.  It was too high for someone to have climbed in, but just low enough for someone brave or desperate enough to scramble out.  The garage roof seemed strong enough to bear at least some weight.

Stefan sat gingerly on the window sill and pulled the blue covers off his feet, before clambering out through the window.  Ignoring the technician’s admonition to watch out, he lowered himself as far as he could go, before carefully jumping down onto the garage.  In the dull light from the window he could see some scuff marks.

“Can you throw me a torch?” he shouted to the technician, who was gawping at him from the window.

“I suppose so.”  After a moment, a torch landed in Stefan’s hands.  He shone it down onto the ground, noticing that a bush beside the garage had several broken branches, and there was a ragged hole in the hedge next to it.

“What’s on the other side of that hedge?”

“It’s a path to the farm on the other side of the woods,” the technician called back to him.

Before the technician could say anything else, or even start to wonder what kind of insanity had seized his strange colleague, Stefan had jumped down from the roof and forced his way through the hedge.  Half running, he kept the beam of the torch trained on the bumpy path that twisted through the trees.  Branches clawed at his face and caught on his jacket.  Twice he tripped on a tree root, before eventually stumbling out the other side of the trees.

Gasping for breath, he called to Elias.  The torch beam showed a low barn ahead, beyond it the dark bulk of the farmhouse, its occupants still sleeping, unaware of the chaos nearby.

“Elias?” he called again, louder this time.  “Elias!  It’s Stefan.  Where are you?”

A light went on in the farmhouse.  At the same moment, Stefan saw a movement out of the corner of his eye.  The barn door had opened a crack, and a pale face was just visible inside.

“Elias.  It’s okay.  You’re safe now.”

Stefan stepped forward slowly, reaching a hand out to the boy.

“It’s all right.”  He rested his hand on Elias’ shoulder and guided him slowly out of the barn.

* * *

It was while Stefan was sitting with Elias in the kitchen at the farm, waiting for a patrol car to come and pick them both up, that the thought hit him.

This was an inside job.

It couldn’t be any other way.  When pressed, Elias was adamant that no strangers had come to the house that evening until the attackers somehow got in.  Nobody apart from the small team of detectives and the few uniformed officers on the security detail knew about the safe house.  The house itself had been in Turesson’s family for years and had been easily available when needed for Elias and his brother, so not even a letting agent had been involved.  Therefore, whoever it was that had attacked Ingvar, they must have gotten their information and access to him from one of the officers involved.

A deep chill gripped him, leaving him momentarily paralysed and unable to breathe.

* * *

He stormed through the corridors of the police station until he found Ahlqvist wearily leaning on a water cooler, cup in hand.

“Where are the two who were on duty at the safe house last night?”

“Well, I think Nisse’s in the break room...”

Bursting into the break room he recognised the miserable-looking officer who sat on his own staring into a cup of coffee.

“Did anyone come to check on the safe house last night?”

“What?”  The other man looked up at him in bewilderment.

Stefan slapped the table in front of him.

“Who came out to check the security of the safe house last night?  It’s a simple enough question!”

The officer jumped and blinked up at him blankly.

“Uh, no-one unusual.  Chief Turesson looked in on his way home, and then Evert came round a bit later.  That was it.”

Stefan closed his eyes and took a very deep breath.  Something inside him was about to burst, he was sure of it.  Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room as fast as he could.

Turesson’s office was roughly halfway along the corridor and it took him precisely thirty steps to reach it.  Stefan burst in, slamming the door behind him.  As expected, Turesson was at his desk, and Stefan’s noisy entrance made him jump violently and nearly spill the coffee he was drinking.

“What’s going on?  I thought I told you to go home?”

“Listen,” said Stefan, throwing himself down into Turesson’s guest chair.  “How do you think this happened?  How did the attackers get into the house?  Nobody knew about the house except a few of us.  _It must have been one of us who let them in._ ”

Turesson froze, a look of utter horror on his face, then slowly lowered his coffee cup onto the desk.

“Good God,” he said in a quiet voice.  “You’re right.”


	11. Rage and Fear

Chapter Eleven

  

For several seconds Turesson sat motionless, staring somewhere into the middle distance.  Then, as if sleepwalking, he got up, walked to the door and locked it.  He took a key from his pocket and unlocked a filing cabinet near the desk, opened the bottom drawer and removed a box, which he proceeded to dump onto the desk.

“This is completely against the rules, of course,” he said, removing a bottle of aquavit and two tumblers from the box.  “I keep this for emergencies.  This is an emergency.”

Stefan stared as he poured a measure into each tumbler and slid one of them across to Stefan’s side of the desk.

“Take it,” said Turesson.  “You’ll feel steadier for it.”

He sank back into his chair and emptied his own glass, while Stefan picked up his and sipped at it.  He hadn’t drunk aquavit for years.  It tasted vaguely like fruitcake and scalded the back of his throat.  He forced it down, ignoring the urge to gag.  Shortly afterwards a wave of warmth spread through his body.

“One more,” said Turesson, topping up both of their glasses, before putting the bottle back into its box.

Stefan drank in silence, watching the Turesson over the brim of his glass.  What was going on in the older man’s head?  After the initial shock, the chief seemed to have regained his composure, superficially at least.  Turesson gazed blankly at the desk, and swallowed the last of his aquavit.  Finally he put his glass down and looked at Stefan.  The expression in his eyes was one of almost infinite hurt.

“I thought I knew my officers pretty well,” he said.  “It’s hard to believe that one of them could do something like this.  I suppose everyone has weaknesses, but I can’t think who would be able to do something so... wicked.”

“I think I know who,” said Stefan softly.

 

* * *

  

Rolf Liljeberg squinted up at them from his seat on the other side of the table.

“Perhaps you could explain to us,” said Wallander.  “Why your name was on a list of possible paedophiles given to us by the Polish police.  And why one of my colleagues has picked you out as a particular person of interest in this case.”

His conversation with Linda was still fresh in his mind.  _Stefan seemed very concerned about Liljeberg_ , she had said.  _He advised us to find out more about him_.

Liljeberg shrugged.

“I wouldn’t know.  I’d say your colleague is mistaken.”

“Really?”  Wallander and Martinsson exchanged meaningful glances.  Martinsson slid a photograph across the table.

“Then how do you explain this?”

Liljeberg glanced down at the photo, which showed three men sitting in a bar, grinning at the camera.  One of whom was himself.

“We found this in a photograph album at the home of Magnus Rhunberg, who is wanted on suspicion of child sex offences.  Underneath this photo was a caption that said ‘Greger, Roffe and me’.  There were other photos of you as well.  You seem to be very pally with both Rhunberg and his friend there, who as I recall is currently serving a sentence for a particularly nasty crime against a young boy.  We’re very interested to hear your explanation for this.”

Liljeberg sighed.

“All right,” he said.  “I’d hoped to keep this confidential, but that doesn’t seem to be possible here.  I’m a retired police officer. For quite a while I worked in Stockholm, but when I retired I decided to move down here.  I keep company with these guys because I’m keeping an eye on what they’re up to.  Undercover work, if you like.  When I get some intelligence on any of them I report it to the Child Protection Unit at headquarters.  So far, thanks to me, they’ve been able to put several of these excuses for human beings behind bars.  Including Greger.”

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, looking over at them expectantly.  A slight hint of a smug smile passed across his face.

Wallander and Martinsson looked at each other.  For several moments silence reigned, until eventually Wallander spoke.

“I see.  So you’re under cover pretending to be a paedophile so you can report back on them?  And Stockholm never told us about this?”

“I don’t see that they would.  As I said, it’s supposed to be confidential.  For it to work, I have to have the absolute trust of these men.  Get your chief to check with her higher-ups if you don’t believe me.”

Wallander nodded.

“I will.  Excuse me for a moment.”

He got up, let himself out of the room and made for Holgersson’s office, where he recounted the conversation he had just had.  Holgersson gave him a disquieted look and sighed.

“I’ll give Stockholm a call,” she said.  “We’ll soon see if he’s telling the truth.”

Wallander nodded and went to fetch a glass of water.  His head was beginning to hurt.  At the same time, Martinsson came out of the interview room – he had apparently had the same thoughts.

“Lisa’s calling Stockholm now,” explained Wallander, as they stood over the water cooler.

“Do you believe him?” said Martinsson, his face a picture of scepticism.

Wallander shrugged.

“I don’t know.  There’s something... odd about him.  Or maybe it’s just me.  I’d like to know why he didn’t introduce himself to us as a former police officer straight away, though.  Or why we don’t have any background information about him on our system.  It would have been very useful to know beforehand what he was up to.”

Martinsson nodded.  He was about to speak when Holgersson’s door opened.  She came out and stood with them.

“It’s true,” she said.  “They confirm that Rolf Liljeberg is indeed a retired officer doing some informal undercover work in child protection.  And I suppose I’d better go and speak to him.”

Shaking her head, she strode to the interview room. Wallander looked at Martinsson, who shrugged and followed Holgersson in.  Wallander slowly wandered over and stood in the doorway.

“...and of course I’d be happy to help your investigation in any way I can,” Liljeberg was saying.

“Yes, I’m sure we could use any intelligence you can give us,” Holgersson replied.

“Like Magnus Rhunberg’s current whereabouts,” Wallander interjected.

Liljeberg shrugged.

“I’m afraid I haven’t spoken to him for a while,” he said.  “He’s been away on holiday, hasn’t he?”

Wallander nodded.

“Let me keep my ear to the ground.  I’ll let you know when I hear something.  And let me give you my number, in case you want to get in touch.”  He scribbled some digits onto a scrap of paper, then pushed his chair away from the table and stood up.  “And now, if it’s all right with you I need to be going.  Got a lot of things to do.”

“Of course,” said Holgersson.  “You’re not under arrest.  Thank you for your help.”

She shook his hand, and Wallander nodded to him as he left the room.  Outside in the corridor he watched the man’s back receding into the distance.

“What did you make of that?” asked Martinsson, suddenly appearing at his side.

Wallander shook his head.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” he said.

 

* * *

  

The silence in the conference room was so intense that Stefan was almost surprised that no one could hear his heart beating.  Turesson had just finished explaining Stefan’s theory to the rest of the team and his last words hung heavily in the air.

“So as you can see, one of our officers is responsible for this.”

“What, are we all under suspicion now?” officer Andersson snapped, looking ready to explode.  Ahlqvist, sitting next to him, shook his head.

“Look around the room, Albin,” he said quietly.  “Who’s missing today?”

Andersson scanned the other faces around the table, coming to a sudden halt as the realisation hit him.

“Oh my god,” he exhaled.  “I should have known.”

Ahlqvist caught Turesson’s eye.

“It is Pilqvist, isn’t it?”

Turesson nodded.

“It seems to be.  He appears to have had every opportunity to do it – he was at the house last night, in fact – and nobody can get hold of him this morning.  The IT team tells me that he’s also wiped everything from his computer, so we have no idea of what he was working on leading up to the attack.  We have to face the possibility that he’s been involved in this thing for a long time.  Right under our noses.”  Turesson’s normally gentle voice contained an unmistakeable note of simmering rage.

“I knew it,” Ahlqvist snorted. “I always said it was a terrible idea to give him a second chance after that Kumla cock-up.  And I was right.”

“Well,” Turesson sighed.  “He gave every appearance of remorse and seemed to have learned his lesson from it.  I guess you can never really be sure what’s going on in someone’s mind.”

By now Stefan had heard a few stories about Pilqvist and his alleged accidental involvement with the escape of a convicted fraudster from Kumla prison.  Except it wasn’t looking so accidental now.

And now there was the problem of trying to find him.  Nobody had seen him since the previous evening.  He hadn’t been in touch with any of the few friends and family who were known to his colleagues.  There was no answer at his flat or on his mobile phone.  His car was gone.  Turesson had somehow managed to get a search warrant for the flat, and a small team of investigators was working it over as they spoke.  Their initial report was that Pilqvist appeared to have taken most of his clothes and valuables.  It seemed that he was not planning on coming back.

“We’ve put out an APB on his car,” said Turesson.  “But of course he may have put false number plates on it.  If he has indeed been involved with the smuggling operation or – heaven forbid – the porn ring, our best chance of finding him is to find his associates.”

“I’ll have to take a good look at yesterday’s interview recordings,” said Solberg, speaking up for the first time.  “We can try and link what Gunnarsson told us with what we’ve been able to find out about Lars Matsson and his friends.”

“Stefan and I can look over the Matsson documents,” said Ahlqvist.

Solberg nodded.

“Let’s get going,” she said, pulling herself up from the table.  “The quicker the better.  Albin, you’d better come with me.  I need a fresh pair of eyes and ears.”

Andersson nodded and followed her out of the room.  With a deep sigh, Ahlqvist opened the thick file that contained the documents pertaining to Lars Matsson and his activities.  He and Stefan began to pore over them.  Turesson got up, shaking his head.

“I’d better go and write a press statement,” he said.  “This is going to get out sooner rather than later.  God knows what I’m going to tell them.”

He left the room, the very picture of a defeated man.

 

* * *

  

Linda and Martinsson had been sitting for some time in silence, working their way through Rhunberg’s documents and photo albums.  The child protection officers from Stockholm had taken all the explicit photos off their hands, for which Linda was immeasurable grateful.  However, there was still a fair amount to look through, to try and determine if there were any clues as to Rhunberg’s whereabouts.  A bar he frequented?  A holiday home?  Some relative that they’d overlooked.

Linda thought again about the conversation she had had with her father about Rolf Liljeberg.  Liljeberg working undercover?  It was a surprise for sure.  If what he said was true, he was doing very valuable work.  So what was this uneasiness she felt every time she thought of him?  She decided to call Stefan later.  Perhaps he could give her some background on this man who apparently an old friend of the family.

She sighed and flicked over another page.  Stared for a moment at the new pages that confronted her.

All the pictures seemed to show some kind of party in a bar somewhere.  Rhunberg had taken some shots of the festivities.  There were even a couple of pictures that showed him posing with friends.  Including the one at the bottom of the page, which showed him grinning next to another man.  A man with an inscrutable face and unreadable eyes, whose face had haunted both her and Stefan for some time.

Lars Matsson.

 

* * *

 

 Stefan’s eyes had begun to feel dry and scratchy, and he had developed a persistent headache.  He had had no breakfast and the meagre cup of coffee that Ahlqvist had brought him from the canteen hadn’t gone very far.

He tried hard to drag his thoughts from the digressions they constantly made.  From Ingvar Gunnarsson, lying close to death in hospital.  From Elias, poor shaken Elias, who had retreated into himself and was lying curled in a ball on the spare bed at Ahlqvist’s house.  From the little boy that he himself had once been, cowering in the shadow of an unspeakable evil that even now he didn’t know how to put into words.

He thought of Pilqvist, of Matsson, of Roffe.  Of all the damage and pain they had caused and how much he hated them all for it.  Not just them, but everyone like them, everyone who aided and abetted them, everyone who enabled them and profited from what they did.  He despised them more than he had thought it was possible to despise another human being.

_If I could_ , he thought, _I’d click my fingers and you would all drop dead.  But even that wouldn’t be good enough.  You need to suffer for what you’ve done.  I hope you all die slowly, in agony._

His eyes were beginning to fill with tears.  He blinked.  In a moment he would have to leave the room and go and wash his face.  What would he say to Ahlqvist if the other officer noticed he was crying?  His cursed his exhausted self for not being able to hold it together.

To his relief, his ruminations were cut short when the door flew open.  A weary-looking Solberg marched in, followed closely by a rather less weary Andersson.

“Kristianstad,” said Solberg.  “Does that mean anything to you guys?  Gunnarsson made repeated references to delivering shipments to somewhere there.”

“Wait, that does remind me of something.”  Ahlqvist rummaged through the stack of papers in front of him.  Eventually he found what he was looking for and held it up.

“It’s a delivery note to Black Horse Imports, Industrigatan, Kristianstad.  There’s a few more of them in this pile, in fact.”

“Why was this not followed up before now?” Solberg demanded.  “Never mind, we need to get this checked out _now_.  Gunnarsson mentioned the warehouse in Kristianstad so many times that I’m willing to bet we’ll find Matsson there.”

“And Pilqvist?”

Solberg nodded.

“We’ve had a sighting from the traffic division of a vehicle matching Evert’s car driving south on Route 23, near Älmhult.  I think he’s heading to this Black Horse place.  I’m going to speak to Kristianstad police, get them to check out that address for us discreetly.  And then we’re going in.”

 

* * *

 

 The empty house echoed as Linda shut the door.  The place had been quite thoroughly searched already, she knew that, but there must have been something they missed the first time.  She took a few steps, then stopped.  The house felt different somehow, as if someone else had been there since they’d searched it.  It was hard to put her finger on what exactly had changed.  She stood still and listened for a minute – a habit that she’d inherited from her father – and surmised from the silence that the place truly was deserted.

If there were any clues left in this house they would be well hidden, she thought.  Where to start?  She moved reluctantly to the room with the bookshelves, where Rhunberg’s photo albums had been found.  They were all gone now, along with his camera and computer.  Linda spent some time peering behind shelves, under furniture, between loose floorboards, looking for anything that might have been missed the first time.

She went into the living room and leafed through the books and papers by the phone – anything that he might have kept notes of names and numbers on.  To no avail – the man seemed averse to writing anything down.  Perhaps he had realised that he was living on borrowed time and that one day he would be searched. Better not to leave anything that incriminated himself.

Frustrated, Linda sighed and tried to decide where to search next.  The bedroom?  Might as well.  She made her way through the narrow doorway.

The bed was still neatly made, the rest of the room relatively bare.  The bedside table yielded nothing but a half-eaten packet of liquorice drops and a battered copy of _Catcher in the Rye_.  Linda pulled back the bed sheets and lifted the pillows.  Nothing.  She slid a hand under the mattress and felt around the bed frame.  She was about to give up when her fingers made contact something smooth and stiff.  A small pile of photographs that had been missed because nobody had thought that Rhunberg would hide such a thing under his bed.

Gingerly, Linda pulled them out and looked under the mattress to make sure there were no more.  She forced herself to look through them.  Most of them were older photos, black and white or faded colour pictures of boys.  Various ages and states of undress.

Linda swallowed the bile that had crept up into her throat and forced herself to keep going.  She was going to have to put all this in her report, so the photos would have to be counted.

Two thirds of the way through the stack she found it.  A black and white shot of a long-haired boy sitting on the edge of a bed, staring into the camera.  She suppressed a cry of horror.  He was so young and vulnerable-looking, but she would have known him anywhere.  His face was unmistakeable, as were the eyes that stared out at her across time and space with a familiar intensity, imploring her for help.

Her hand was shaking so much that it would hardly obey her, but somehow she managed to turn the photo over to read the crabbed handwriting on the back.

_Stefan, 11 years old._

 


End file.
